Contrary to the established canon of a review of five books, this time we have a triptych. But outstanding, but sensational. Many times rejected and recognized. Criticized, anathematized, and then raised to the level of a new religion and worldview. And yes, by the number of pages it exceeds any Pentateuch.
All this is about Ayn Rand, who described in such detail, deeply and simply the relationship of a person with himself, God, other people and business partners. Ayn Rand, nee Alice Rosenbaum, so awkwardly hushed up in the countries of the former USSR and become a classic in America, whose works inspire millions of people to think with their heads and go not with the flow and not against it, but where they need to go. Meet: writer by vocation, entrepreneur by conviction, lady by life.
1. “We are alive”
“And it is your business to sacrifice yourself for the sake of millions of people? - No. For my own sake, lead millions of people to where I need to go.” The very first and, perhaps, the most poignant in the purity of its hopelessness and strength, Rand's novel. A book about the 20s of the last century and about love teetering at a point of uncertainty in a city that hasn’t even got a name properly, either Petrograd or Leningrad… In a city where the propaganda of facelessness, collective good and interdependence killed people the ability to love, think, make decisions, be yourself.
The main character, Kira Argunova, lost a lot, almost everything, but retained the most important thing - faith and confidence in her feelings, thoughts and beliefs. Today she would be called a bitch, feared, hated and idolized. However, even then, in hungry Petrograd, her straight posture seemed to many a mockery, and her direct and open look in her eyes - arrogant and insulting. Sharp-tongued, beautiful and with high cheekbones, she so irritated those who were used to eating sprat from a newspaper, walking in formation and calling each other “comrade Sonya” ...
“I fear for your future, Kira,” Victor said, “now is the time to come to terms with life as it is. With thoughts like that, you won't get far.
“That,” Kira said, “depends on which way I want to go.
2. "Source"
“To say: “I love you”, you need to learn how to pronounce I”. Twice as many pages and lifelines as Rand masterfully pulls together into one nautical knot. The young and talented architect Howard Roark is ready to endure any difficulties in order to do what he loves in life, without which his life will be discolored, and he himself will become a shadow. He is ready to do anything except compromise with himself. Howard Roark does not hide his attitude to anything, he says and does only what he likes and what he considers right. He doesn't change his mind. And he is able to fall in love only once in his life - a woman who, ironically, will become the wife of his worst enemy.
- My dear friend, who will allow you?
- It is not important. The main thing is who will stop me?
Unlike other books by Ayn Rand, this one quite clearly raises the question of whether the relationship between a man and a woman can be considered from the same positions and according to the same principles as business relationship. And he gives a definite answer.
“I came out to declare that I am a person who does not exist for others. It is necessary to declare this, for the world is perishing in an orgy of self-sacrifice. I do not recognize any obligations to people, except for one thing - to respect their freedom and not have anything to do with the society of slaves. I am ready to give my country ten years that I will spend in prison if my country no longer exists. I will give them in memory of her and with gratitude to her as she was. It will be an act of loyalty to my country and an act of refusal to live and work in the country that has come to replace it.”
3. “Atlas Shrugged”
“I swear on my life and love for it that I will never live for another person and I will never ask or force another person to live for me.” 1500 pages for advanced randists. But if you've read the previous two novels, you're doomed to this one. It is like a code, like the Bible, like Google. The only difference is that it will give you an answer to a question that neither the codex, nor the Bible, nor Google can answer - who is John Galt?
In Atlanta, Ayn Rand consistently and inspiringly talks about what it means to be a person, how to become one and how to stay one. This is a story about the vital necessity of individualism and the price that will have to be paid for it. The novel is thoroughly stitched with the idea of the inevitability of the collapse of any relationship - political, economic, interpersonal, if they are based on mutual obligations, and not on purely personal interest.
“There were times when people were afraid that someone would reveal secrets that were unknown to their fellow men. Today they are afraid that someone will say out loud what everyone knows about.
Dagny Taggart, a fragile and at the same time steel woman, is ready to give her life so that her family's business - the country's largest railway company - stops rapidly approaching bankruptcy, incurring huge material losses due to deterioration railways and a series of crashes of its compositions. Therefore, she decides to use a new metal, which was invented by another crazy and strong-willed person - just like her. Here begins the story of a long journey to each other of two people, obsessed with a passionate desire to live in the name of those goals and values that they consider worthy of their lives.
“Mr. Rearden,” Francisco said in a solemnly calm tone, “if you saw an Atlantean holding the world on his shoulders, saw how blood flows down his chest, his legs buckle and his hands tremble, and he is trying with all his strength to hold the world, and the more powerful the effort, the heavier the world presses on his shoulders - what would you offer him?
- I don't know. What... can he do? What would you suggest to him?
- Straighten your shoulders.
According to a 1991 public opinion poll conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club in America, Atlas Shrugged is the second book after the Bible to change the lives of American readers.
All in all, I don't know of any other book that is more inspiring.
I swear on my life and love for her that I will never live for another person, and I will never ask or make another person live for me.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
Ayn Rand (eng. Ayn Rand; nee Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum; January 20 (February 2), 1905, St. Petersburg - March 6, 1982, New York) - American writer and philosopher, creator of the philosophical direction of objectivism - based on the principles of reason, individualism , reasonable egoism and being an intellectual justification of capitalist values, as opposed to socialism and collectivism, popular during the years of her active writing (1936-1982). The basis of objectivism is fundamental monism, the unity of the world and language, being and thinking. According to this philosophical direction, there is only one objective reality, and not two separate ones - the reality itself and its description. Rand expressed her philosophical views through the ideal of a creative person who lives solely at the expense of his creativity and talent. In politics, Ayn Rand was a supporter of unlimited capitalism and a minimal state, considered the only legitimate function of the state to protect human rights (including property rights). Rand herself considered Atlas Shrugged to be her main book.
February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg was born an American writer Ayn Rand(née Alice Rosenbaum). The years of her adolescence and youth came at a difficult time: First World War, two revolutions, then Civil War, War communism... This period of her life is described by the writer's first novel, We Are the Living, published in 1936 in the United States, where she emigrated 10 years earlier.
Ayn Rand was a supporter of rational individualism, opposed to collectivism. She expressed her views in the famous novel Atlas Shrugged, which became a kind of bible of the objectivists. She also wrote such books as "The Source", "Hymn", "The Art of Fiction. A guide for writers and readers”, “Ideal” and many other works that have become classics.
Here are the quotes of the writer, whose books have become a real revelation for many of us. Ayn Rand does not just speak, she screams with the voices of her heroes about the most painful - about disappointments, love, money, heroes and mediocrity. And all this so that we, as well as her Atlantean, can finally straighten our shoulders. In our selection, the most striking revelations of this unusual personality.
1. He never asked them for anything. It was they who sought to own him, it was they who made constant claims to him. Moreover, these claims had the appearance of affection, which, however, was more difficult for him to endure than any kind of hatred. For some unknown reason, these people began to love him, not wanting to know why he wanted to be loved.
2. These people have power over you because you don't give yourself any mercy. They indulge their emotions. You sacrifice your feelings. They don't want to endure anything. You are ready to endure anything. They avoid responsibility. All you do is take it upon yourself. But don't you see that it's basically the same mistake? Refusal to recognize reality always leads to disastrous consequences.
3. Do you know distinguishing feature mediocrity? Resentment at the success of another. These touchy mediocrities are shaking over how no one would jump them. They have no idea what kind of loneliness comes when you reach the top. They are alien to this feeling of longing, when you so want to see a person equal to you, a mind worthy of admiration, and an achievement that you can admire.
4. People don't want to think. The deeper they sink into their worries, the less they want to think. But subconsciously they feel they have to think and feel guilty. Therefore, they will bless and follow the advice of anyone who can find an excuse for their unwillingness to think. Anyone who turns into a virtue - what they consider their sin, their weakness, their guilt.
5. Wealth is the result of a person's ability to think. Money itself is just a tool. They will lead you to any goal, but they will not replace you at the helm. Money will satisfy your aspirations and desires, but will not replace your goal and dream.
6. Who among the people is the most base? A person with no purpose.
7. How does a person feel surrounded by mediocrity and dullness? Hatred? No, not hatred, but boredom—terrible, hopeless, paralyzing boredom. What are the flattery and praise of people whom you do not respect worth?
8. If you try to surround yourself with money with those who are higher and smarter than you, in order to gain prestige, then in the end you will fall prey to those who are lower. A man cannot be less than his money, otherwise they will crush him.
9. Nothing in life is more important than how you do your job. There is nothing. It is most important. And your essence is manifested precisely in this. This is the only measure of a person's worth.
10. What makes you confident is the moral principle.
11. A man who curses money got it dishonestly, a man who respects money deserves it. Walk away without looking back from anyone who tells you that money is evil. These words are the leper's bell, the clang of the bandit's weapon.
12. There are no bad thoughts, only the refusal to think is evil. Don't neglect your desires. Don't sacrifice them. Explore their cause.
13. I do not accept sacrifices and do not bring them. If the pleasure of one is bought by the suffering of another, it is better to refuse the transaction altogether. When one wins and the other loses, it's not a deal, it's a scam.
14. Do you know what your only real fault is? You have not learned to enjoy, although you have the greatest ability to do so. You give up your own pleasure too easily. You are ready to endure too much.
15. It is impossible to control innocent people. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there are not enough criminals, they are created. So many things are declared criminal that it becomes impossible to live without breaking the law. You create a state of lawbreakers and profit from guilt. Here is such a game.
16. A person cannot be harmed except by blaming. Accused of what he can plead guilty to. If he has stolen a dime some time before, you can apply the safecracker's punishment to him and he will accept it. He will endure any adversity and believe that he does not deserve better. If there are not enough reasons to blame a person, you need to come up with them.
17. They say that love is blind, sex is deaf to reason and mocks all philosophical ideas. But in fact, sexual choice is the result of a person's core beliefs. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his whole philosophy of life. Show me the woman he's sleeping with and I'll tell you how he feels about himself.
1. Thought is a weapon that a person uses in order to act.
2. Many people will try to hurt you for the good they see in you, knowing that it is good, envying it and punishing you for it.
3. A man looks for a reflection of himself in a woman. A man is always attracted to a woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, a woman whose conquest will allow him to experience - or pretend to experience - self-esteem. A man who is confident in his own worth will want to possess a woman of the highest type, the woman he adores, the strongest and most inaccessible, because only the possession of a heroine will give him a sense of satisfaction. Possession of an uncomplicated prostitute will not give anything.
4. Everything is very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what do you give her? It's nothing more than a fact, and it didn't cost you anything. Loving a woman for her virtues is pointless. She deserved it. This is a payment, not a gift. But to love a woman for her vices is a real gift, because she does not deserve it. To love her for her vices is to defile all notions of virtue for her sake, and this is a true tribute to love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your mind, your honesty and your inestimable self-respect.
5. In order to live, a person must consider three things as the highest and decisive values: Mind, Purpose, Self-respect. Reason as the only instrument of knowledge, Purpose as the choice of happiness, which this instrument should achieve, Self-respect as an indestructible confidence that he is able to think, and his personality is worthy of happiness, which means worthy of life. These three values require all the virtues of man, and all his virtues are connected with the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, purity, honesty, justice, efficiency, pride.
6. They say that love is blind, sex is deaf to reason and mocks all philosophical ideas. But in fact, sexual choice is the result of a person's core beliefs. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his whole philosophy of life. Show me the woman he's sleeping with and I'll tell you how he feels about himself.
7. What makes you confident is the moral principle.
8. Value is what a person obtains and preserves by his actions, virtue is an action by which he obtains and preserves value. Value implies a criterion - the purpose and necessity of action in the face of choice. Where there is no choice, values cannot exist.
9. Nothing in life is more important than how you do your job. There is nothing. It is most important. And your essence is manifested precisely in this. This is the only measure of a person's worth.
10 Do you know what your only real fault is? You have not learned to enjoy, although you have the greatest ability to do so. You give up your own pleasure too easily. You are ready to endure too much.
11. Wealth is the result of a person's ability to think. Money itself is just a tool. They will lead you to any goal, but they will not replace you at the helm. Money will satisfy your aspirations and desires, but will not replace your goal and dream.
12. These people have power over you because you don't give yourself any mercy. They indulge their emotions. You sacrifice your feelings. They don't want to endure anything. You are ready to endure anything. They avoid responsibility. All you do is take it upon yourself. But don't you see that it's basically the same mistake? Refusal to recognize reality always leads to disastrous consequences.
13. I swear by my life and love for her that I will never live for another person, and I will never ask or force another person to live for me.
14. Sometimes there were moments like today, when she suddenly felt an unbearable emptiness, not even emptiness, but silence, not despair, but immobility, as if everything had stopped in her without any special problems. Then she felt the desire to receive short-term joy from outside, the desire to be an outside observer of someone else's work or greatness. Not to possess, but only to surrender; not to act, but only to react; not to create, but to admire. Only then can I continue to exist, because happiness is the fuel for the soul.
15. You can feel truly easy and at ease only when you realize your importance.
