18 uses
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1 —3 uses as in:
an alternative plan
Definition
something available as another possibility
- Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (18% in)
There are no more uses of "alternative" flagged with this meaning in Atlas Shrugged.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —15 uses
exact meaning not specified
- 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- What alternative occurred to you?1.5 Part 1 Chapter 5 — The Climax of the D'Anconias (81% in)
- That is the alternative.1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (52% in)
- Your only alternative is to state for the record that you throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.2.4 Part 2 Chapter 4 — The Sanction of the Victim (50% in)
- They had counted on his pity and dreaded his anger; they had not dared consider the third alternative; his indifference.3.6 Part 3 Chapter 6 — The Concerto of Deliverance (16% in)
- There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence-and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (17% in)
- Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice-and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal, Man has to be man-by choice; he has to hold his life as a value-by choice; he has to learn to sustain it-by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues-by choice.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (18% in)
- But you cannot live as anything else-and the alternative is that state of living death which you now see within you and around you, the state of a thing unfit for existence, no longer human and less than animal, a thing that knows nothing but pain and drags itself through its span of years in the agony of unthinking self-destruction.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (20% in)
- Just as your body has two fundamental sensations, pleasure and pain, as signs of its welfare or injury, as a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death, so your consciousness has two fundamental emotions, joy and suffering, in answer to the same alternative.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (30% in)
- Just as your body has two fundamental sensations, pleasure and pain, as signs of its welfare or injury, as a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death, so your consciousness has two fundamental emotions, joy and suffering, in answer to the same alternative.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (30% in)
- Men are free not to choose man's survival as the standard of their morals and their laws, but not free to escape from the fact that the alternative is a cannibal society, which exists for a while by devouring its best and collapses like a cancerous body, when the healthy have been eaten by the diseased, when the rational have been consumed by the irrational.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (89% in)
- The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of 'human rights' versus 'property rights,' as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body.3.7 Part 3 Chapter 7 — "This is John Galt Speaking" (89% in)
- I haven't said yes or no!" he cried, cringing tighter against the door, as if immobility of mind and body were his best protection, "One-" she counted; she could see his eyes staring at her in terror —"Two-" she could see that the gun held less terror for him than the alternative she offered-"Three."3.10 Part 3 Chapter 10 — In the Name of the Best Among Us (6% in)
There are no more uses of "alternative" in Atlas Shrugged.
Typical Usage
(best examples)