Ayn Rand Quotes

Guilt is a rope that wears thin.

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

My dear fellow, who will let you?" "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?

The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning mind.

Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.

Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.

All work is an act of philosophy.

The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.

Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.

Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference

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

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.

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

The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.

The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.

Whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all.

Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

A house can have integrity, just like a person.

There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men.

It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.

the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.

What do I "think" of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: I don't think of him. And the more I see, the less I think.

The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind

In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone.

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.

Ordinary human concern for human distress does not manifest itself ordinarily in the form of a gun aimed at the wallets and earnings of one's neighbors.

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence.

When personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to justify their choice

Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal.

The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity.

I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life.

Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." Roark: "But I don't think of you.

This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.

I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.

To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob.

She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.

What is a demanding pleasure that demands the use of ones mind! Not in the sense of problem solving, but in the sense of exercising discrimination, judgment, awareness.

You don't love causes. You don't love everybody indiscriminately. You love only those who deserve it.

You love people, not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for their values; their virtues.

But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.

Man's character is the product of his premises.

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live.

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

There is no such dichotomy as 'human rights' versus 'property rights.' No human rights can exist without property rights.

There can be no compromise on moral principles.