I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. - Ayn Rand
The right to vote is a *consequence*, not a primary cause, of a free social system -- and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny. - Ayn Rand
His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter. - Ayn Rand
Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness. - Ayn Rand
For the "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within a man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and an unspeakable lie. - Ayn Rand
The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it. - Ayn Rand
There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the sexual act. - Ayn Rand
An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes. - 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. - Ayn Rand
Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future. - Ayn Rand
Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence. - Ayn Rand
James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning. - Ayn Rand
Morality is judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, and integrity to stand by it at any price. - Ayn Rand
It [ballet] projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision. - Ayn Rand
Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind. - 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. - 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. - Ayn Rand
The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them. - 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. - Ayn Rand
When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as human rights versus property rights. No human rights can exist without property rights. - Ayn Rand
Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want. - Ayn Rand
Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today. - Ayn Rand
I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother. - Ayn Rand
It takes two to make a very great career: the man who is great, and the man--almost rarer--who is great enough to see greatness and say so. - Ayn Rand
He had a big head and a face so ugly it became almost fascinating. - Ayn Rand
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments. - Ayn Rand
If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, than what is good and what is evil? - Ayn Rand
Art is inextricably tied to man's survival - not to his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness. - Ayn Rand
Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential. - Ayn Rand
A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices. - Ayn Rand
Man is an end in himself. - Ayn Rand
Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man. - Ayn Rand
Beauty is a sense of harmony. - Ayn Rand
A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal that is worth achieving. - Ayn Rand
There's no way to rule innocent men. 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. - Ayn Rand
Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence--and every achievement is an expression of it. - Ayn Rand
He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. - Ayn Rand
I just there for two days and that thought of what last words I could say to the firing squad. As good a pastime as any. - Ayn Rand
The exquisite kindliness of her manner suggested that their relationship was of no possible consequence, that she could not pay him the tribute of hostility. - Ayn Rand
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. - Ayn Rand
You are an unusual, brilliant child who has not seen enough of life to grasp the full measure of human stupidity. - Ayn Rand
But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself. - 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. - 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. - Ayn Rand
When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you – you know your nation is doomed. - Ayn Rand
I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. - Ayn Rand
Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration. - Ayn Rand
In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. - Ayn Rand
To irrational principles, one cannot be loyal. Ideas that are not derived from reality cannot be consistently practiced in reality.--as quoted by Leonard Peikoff in "Objectivism: The Philosophy of - 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. - Ayn Rand
Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it. - 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. - Ayn Rand
The upper classes are... a nation's past; the middle class is its future. - Ayn Rand
People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism. - Ayn Rand
Guilt is a rope that wears thin. - 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. - 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. - Ayn Rand
Art is the indespensible medium for the communication of a moral idea. - Ayn Rand
A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment ... is not, strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutionalized gang-rule. - Ayn Rand
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I. - Ayn Rand
There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. - Ayn Rand
That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character. - Ayn Rand
Words are a lens to focus one’s mind. - 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. - Ayn Rand
An inventor is a man who asks 'Why?' of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind. - Ayn Rand
Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to? - Ayn Rand
An artist reveals his naked soul in his work - and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it. - Ayn Rand
An artist does not fake reality--he *stylizes* it. - Ayn Rand
He was guilty of nothing, except that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his. - Ayn Rand
Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear. - Ayn Rand
Now you see, Dr. Stadler, you're speaking as if this book were addressing to a thinking audience. If it were, one would have to be concerned with such matters as accuracy, validity, logic and the prestige of science. But it isn't. It's addressed to the public. - Ayn Rand
If men want to oppose war, it is *statism* that they must oppose. - Ayn Rand
Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness. - Ayn Rand
A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; A government individual may do nothing except that which is legally permitted. - Ayn Rand
Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group—whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called the common good. - Ayn Rand
We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it. - 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. - Ayn Rand
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. - Ayn Rand
There is only one path to heaven. On Earth we call it Love. - Ayn Rand
We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality. - Ayn Rand
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. - Ayn Rand
A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides. - Ayn Rand
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand
When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another — except brute, physical force. - Ayn Rand
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. - Ayn Rand
The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. - Ayn Rand
Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. - 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. - Ayn Rand
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. - Ayn Rand
The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence. - 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. - Ayn Rand
The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. - Ayn Rand
Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak. - Ayn Rand
A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist. - Ayn Rand