Ayn Rand Quotes

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

If the truth shall kill them, let them die.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable 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 in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

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

A businessman cannot force you to buy his product;

if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. If bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you.

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

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

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed

Defiance, not obedience, is the American's answer to overbearing authority.

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.

Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

But I don't think of you. - Howard Roark

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

Thinking men cannot be ruled.

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

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil.

That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

The smallest minority on earth in the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.

The government was set to protect man from criminals, and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government.

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others." - Howard Roark

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

The question isn't 'who is going to let me'; it's 'who is going to stop me'.

To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.

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.

Do not let your fire go out.

Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... 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 is yours.

Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom;

a free mind and a free market are corollaries.

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.

It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage-the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterologic al traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them.

I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

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.

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.

The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendour that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach.

In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary.

Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

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

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

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote;

a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.

To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.

’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.

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).

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good.

Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are.

Live a life as a monument to your soul.

It's true that there's no such thing as free will.

We can't help what we are or what we do. It's not our fault. Nobody's to blame for anything. It's all in your background ... and your glands. If you're good, that's no achievement of yours - you were lucky in your glands. If you're rotten, nobody should punish you - you were unlucky, that's all.

To say I love you one must know first how to say the I.

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.