Ayn Rand’s Marcus Aurelius -The Toast

Skip to the article, or search this site

Home: The Toast

“Whatever the Free Market ordains, is full of wisdom. What we ascribe to fortune, happens not without a presiding nature, nor without a connection and intertexture with the things ordered by the Market. From the Market all things flow. Consider, too, the necessity of these events; and their utility to that whole Market of which you are a part. In every Market, that must always be good to a part, which the nature of the whole requires, and which tends to preserve it. Now, the Market is preserved, as, by the changes of the Elements, so, by the changes of the complex forms. Let these thoughts suffice; let them be your maxims, laying aside that thirst after multitudes of books; that you may die without repining, well-satisfied, and sincerely grateful to the Market Forces.”

“The market is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”

“Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny that the Market ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great Market.”

“What do you desire? Take it.”

“The Market beholds all souls bare, and stripped of these corporeal vessels, bark and filth. For, by the Market’s pure nature, it touches only what flows out, and is derived from itself. If you would inure yourself to do the like, you would be free from much distraction and solicitude.”

“Don’t suffer the mind to wander. Keep the market in view in every design.”

“When you arise in the morning think of how it is your right to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

“It is not death that a man should fear, but price ceilings.”

“Whatever is agreeable to thee, shall be agreeable to me, O graceful Market! Nothing shall be to me too early, or too late, which is seasonable to thee; whatever thy seasons bear, shall be joyful fruits to me, O Market! From thee are all things; in thee they subsist; to thee they return.”

“Consider always this market as one living being or animal; with one material substance, and one spirit; and how all things are referred to the sense of this spirit; and how the market’s will accomplishes all things.”

“Either the Market has no power at all, or it has power. If, then, it has no power, why do you spend? But if it has power, why don’t you choose to spend in a way that enables you, neither to fear any of these things, nor desire any of them, nor be grieved about any of them; rather than for the having them, or the not having them. But, perhaps you will say; the Market has put this in my own power. Well, then, is it not better to use the things which are in your own power, and preserve your liberty; than perplex your self about the things which are not in your own power, and become an abject slave. And who told you the Market doesn’t give us its assistance, too, in the things which are in our own power?”

Add a comment

Skip to the top of the page, search this site, or read the article again