120 quotes
The men who attempt to survive, not by means of reason, but by means of force, are attempting to survive by the method of animals.
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
The second handers offer substitutes for competence such as love, charm, kindness - easy substitutes - and there is no substitute for creation.
Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)
In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.
Anthem (1937)
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.
I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life.
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Anthem (1937)
There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
Anthem (1937)
On second handers: [They are] always concerned with people - not facts, ideas, work or production. What would happen to the world without those who think, work, and produce?
Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)
Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.
Atlas Shrugged (1957)
The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach.
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.
The Voice of Reason (1989)
Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.
The Romantic Manifesto (1969)
Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.
The Romantic Manifesto (1969)
The law of reality, that A is non-A, and that omniscience [is] about the physical universe (including electricity, gravitation, the solar system, etc ...
You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge, they run from it. They spend their lives running.
The Fountainhead (1943)
All progress is the work of individuals.
Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)
Never initiate the use of force against another man. Never let his use of force against you remain unanswered by force.
Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)