Ayn Rand Quotes

Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places.

The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.

Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.

It is only when it takes the form of physical addiction that sex is evil. It is also evil when it manifests itself as a way of satisfying the lust for power or the climber's craving for position and social distinction.

Lust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions.

Power calls to those who are hungry for power, and there are hungry idiots everywhere.

The State acquires power... and because of its insatiable lust for power it is incapable of giving up any of it. The State never abdicates.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.

Ambition is the immoderate desire of power.

Power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, "Give, give!

The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.

You are not the one who experiences liberation; you are the clearing, the opening, the emptiness, in which any experience comes and goes, like reflections on the mirror. And you are the mirror, the mirror mind, and not any experienced reflection.

The craving for power is in itself a sign of inferior abilities and unfitness for responsibility.

An idle head is a boxe for the winde.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.

Because arrogance is born in personal vanity, arrogant people are driven without mercy. They can never get enough power to fill the soul's needs or enough respect to overcome the fear that they deserve less than they are getting.

Where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice.

Power is sweet, and when you are a little clerk you love its sweetness quite as much as if you were an emperor, and maybe you love it a good deal more.

The love of power is the demon of mankind.

Unfortunately, however, power is sweet, and the man who in the beginning seeks power merely in order to have scope for his benevolence is likely, before long, to love the power for its own sake.

We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed: In God 'tisglory; and when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.

Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic," no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.