Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims–as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force–he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason. Reason is the enemy he dreads and, simultaneously, considers precarious; reason, to him, is a means of deception; he feels that men possess some power more potent than reason–and only their causeless belief or their forced obedience can give him a sense of security, a proof that he has gained control of the mystic endowment he lacked. His lust is to command, not to convince: conviction requires an act of independence and rests on the absolute of an objective reality. What he seeks is power over reality and over men’s means of perceiving it, their mind, the power to interpose his will between existence and consciousness, as if, by agreeing to fake the reality he orders them to fake, men would, in fact, create it. . Ayn Rand
Some Similar Quotes
  1. When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always. - Mahatma Gandhi

  2. Buy a gift for a dog, and you'll be amazed at the way it will dance and swerve its tail, but if don't have anything to offer to it, it won't even recognize your arrival; such are the attributes of fake friends. - Michael Bassey Johnson

  3. May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. - George Carlin

  4. When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. - Lao Tzu

  5. We are supposed to call poison medicine and we wonder why we're always sick. - Stefan Molyneux

More Quotes By Ayn Rand
  1. Haven't I? - he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought of nothing else for two years? ..He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words...

  2. Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea...

  3. I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you... Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference

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