Ayn Rand Quotes

A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack

...Opinion without a rational process.

A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive g...

A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.

Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence domin...

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to b...

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain o...

Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, i...

Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men f...

Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state do...

You love your work. God help you, you love it! And thats the curse. That's the brand on your forehea...

To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent...

While a creator does and must worship Man (which means his own highest potentiality; which is his na...

The man who discovers new knowledge is the permanent benefactor of humanity.

In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are at its worst. In th...

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought si...

But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good and any action taken for ...

An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery a...

An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and h...

I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have fo...

To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.

Upper classes are a nation's past the middle-class is its future.

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on...

Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life....

What you think is an illusion created by your glands your emotions and in the last analysis by th...

Haven't I? - he thought. Haven't I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven't I thought o...

It [ballet] projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision.

Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.

There is only one path to heaven. On Earth we call it Love.

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

Now you see, Dr. Stadler, you're speaking as if this book were addressing to a thinking audience. If...

I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than h...

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the ...

Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence.

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.

We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.

When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you – you know y...

God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.

And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good...

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a paymen...

It takes two to make a very great career: the man who is great, and the man--almost rarer--who is gr...

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagr...

Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to spea...

Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing but the degree to which he thinks determin...

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

...if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that you...

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but...

If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted-I'd have to depend on the whole world. Eve...

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ru...

God forgives those who invent what they need.

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

The exquisite kindliness of her manner suggested that their relationship was of no possible conseque...

For the "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must neve...

He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was useless, because his words...

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is alwa...

Let us throw away our candles and our torches. Let us flood the cities with light. Let us bring a ne...

Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man.

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand a...

Upper classes are a nation's past the middle class is its future.

A young woman stood before the railing, speaking to the reception clerk. Her slender body seemed out...

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave th...

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.

Beauty is a sense of harmony.

A good novel is an indivisible sum: every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve...

You are so lost to your higher self that you would resent me for my achievements, rather than celebr...

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free ...

There is noroom for the love of others within the tight, crowded miser’s hole of a privateego. Be em...

I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its f...

An artist reveals his naked soul in his work - and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it.

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't e...

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental ...

We knew not where we were going. We only knew that we must run, run to the end of the world, run to ...

Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—or by vote, as ...

To irrational principles, one cannot be loyal. Ideas that are not derived from reality cannot be con...

You are an unusual, brilliant child who has not seen enough of life to grasp the full measure of hum...

A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limi...

Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but...

Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of li...

When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such d...

I want you, Hank. I'm much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I sa...

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physica...

Art is inextricably tied to man's survival - not to his physical survival, but to that on which his ...

Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is...

It was the only thing I ever really wanted. And that’s the sin that can’t be forgiven--that I hadn’t...

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.

The entire history of science is a progression of exploded fallacies.

We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own c...

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell o...

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Red...

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruptio...

The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.