Famous Ayn Rand Quotations

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"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
by Ayn Rand
"There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist."
by Ayn Rand
"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."
by Ayn Rand
"A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom."
by Ayn Rand
"When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is."
by Ayn Rand
"A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization."
by Ayn Rand
"Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death."
by Ayn Rand
"America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to ‘the common good,’ but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes."
by Ayn Rand
"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes."
by Ayn Rand
"An artist does not fake reality--he *stylizes* it."
by Ayn Rand
"Art is the indespensible medium for the communication of a moral idea."
by Ayn Rand
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
by Ayn Rand
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
by Ayn Rand
"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."
by Ayn Rand
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."
by Ayn Rand
"Doctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer."
by Ayn Rand
"Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice."
by Ayn Rand
"Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions."
by Ayn Rand
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
by Ayn Rand
"He had a big head and a face so ugly it became almost fascinating."
by Ayn Rand
"He was guilty of nothing, except that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his."
by Ayn Rand
"Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud."
by Ayn Rand
"I can accept anthing, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between."
by Ayn Rand
"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction."
by Ayn Rand
"If men want to oppose war, it is *statism* that they must oppose."
by Ayn Rand
"If there is any one proof of a man's incompetence, it is the stagnant mentality of a worker who, doing some small routine job in a vast undertaking, does not care to look beyond the lever of a machine, does not choose to know how the machine got there or what makes his job possible, and proclaims that the management of the undertaking is parasitical and unneccessary."
by Ayn Rand
"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."
by Ayn Rand
"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it."
by Ayn Rand
"Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence."
by Ayn Rand
"It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener."
by Ayn Rand
"James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning."
by Ayn Rand
"Live a life as a monument to your soul."
by Ayn Rand
"Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another’s values."
by Ayn Rand
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone."
by Ayn Rand
"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue."
by Ayn Rand
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
by Ayn Rand
"Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned."
by Ayn Rand
"Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it."
by Ayn Rand
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money? by"
by Ayn Rand
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money"
by Ayn Rand
"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday...The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production."
by Ayn Rand
"The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence."
by Ayn Rand
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it."
by Ayn Rand
"The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."
by Ayn Rand
"The idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others."
by Ayn Rand
"The most depraved type of being is that without purpose"
by Ayn Rand
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
by Ayn Rand
"The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them."
by Ayn Rand
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."
by Ayn Rand
"The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles."
by Ayn Rand
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other."
by Ayn Rand
"Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature."
by Ayn Rand
"If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with"
by Ayn Rand
"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."
by Ayn Rand
"Upper classes are a nation's past, the middle class its future."
by Ayn Rand
"The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt."
by Ayn Rand
"A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences, produces a slow, gradual, day-by-day erosion of man's emotional vitality, which he may ignore or repress, but which is recorded by the relentless computer of his subconscious mechanism that registers an ebbing flow, then a trickle, then a few last drops of fuel--until the day when his inner motor stops and he wonders desperately why he has no desire to go on, unable to find any definable cause of his hopeless, chronic sense of exhaustion."
by Ayn Rand
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"
by Ayn Rand
"In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours."
by Ayn Rand
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision."
by Ayn Rand
"God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive."
by Ayn Rand
"The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good."
by Ayn Rand
"The common good of a collective -- a race, a class, a state -- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. The believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with the declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing of themselves. But observe the results."
by Ayn Rand
"Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil."
by Ayn Rand


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