Ayn Rand Quotes & Sayings

He never felt lonliness except when he was happy. — Ayn Rand

I won't say that we couldn't get along without you - we can. I won't beg you to stay here for our sake - I didn't think I'd ever revert to that rotten old plea, but, boy! - what a temptation it was, I can almost see why people do it. I — Ayn Rand

Get the hell out of my way! — Ayn Rand

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: "No." Altruism says: "Yes. — Ayn Rand

My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that "doesn't count," i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational - not relating their one action or one conviction to another. — Ayn Rand

Then she remembered. — Ayn Rand

If joy is the aim and the core of existence, she thought, and if that which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one's deepest secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment. — Ayn Rand

Face a challenge and find joy in the capacity to meet it. — Ayn Rand

For three years, ever since he had lived in Stanton, he had come here for his only relaxation, to swim, to rest, to think, to be alone and alive, whenever he could find one hour to spare, which had not been often. In his new freedom the first thing he had wanted to do was to come here, because he knew that he was coming for the last time. — Ayn Rand

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity. — Ayn Rand

The crowd would have forgiven anything, except a man who could remain normal under the vibrations of its enormous collective sneer. — Ayn Rand

They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is entitled to receive his 'minimum sustenance' his food, his clothes, his shelter with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright. To receive it from whom. — Ayn Rand

I can say-not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological , ethical, political and esthetic roots-that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world. — Ayn Rand

Now take a human body. Why wouldn't you like to see a human body with a curling tail with a crest of ostrich feathers at the end? And with ears shaped like acanthus leaves? It would be ornamental, you know, instead of the stark, bare ugliness we have now. Well, why don't you like the idea? Because it would be useless and pointless. Because the beauty of the human body is that is hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man. — Ayn Rand

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. — Ayn Rand

She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To hell with that, she thought- and never worried about it again. — Ayn Rand

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. When unlimited and unrestricted by individual rights, a government is man's deadliest enemy. It is not as protection against private actions, but against governmental actions that the Bill of Rights was written. — Ayn Rand

Why yes, I can,' said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. 'The man who uses another's pity for him as a weapon. — Ayn Rand

The desperate violence of the way he held her, the hurting pressure of his mouth on hers, the exultant surrender of his body to the touch of hers, were not the form of a moment's pleasure - she knew that no physical hunger could bring a man to this - she knew that it was the statement she had never heard from him, the greatest confession of love a man could make. — Ayn Rand

All work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one's own eyes - which means: the capacity to perform a rational identification -which means: the capacity to see, to connect and to make what had not been seen, connected and made before. — Ayn Rand

Most American men are repressors. — Ayn Rand

The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave. — Ayn Rand

Dominique, it's abnormal to feel so strongly about anything." "That's the only way I can feel. Or not at all. — Ayn Rand

In art, and in literature, the end and the means, or the subject and the style, must be worthy of each other.
That which is not worth contemplating in life, is not worth re-creating in art. — Ayn Rand

Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind. — Ayn Rand

The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, and to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. — Ayn Rand

She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt. — Ayn Rand

Never Consume more than you produce. — Ayn Rand

And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory.
The sacred word:
EGO — Ayn Rand

The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power. The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its principles from the cultural atmosphere around them-from schools, colleges, books, magazines, newspapers, movies, television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or by default. — Ayn Rand

The more neurotic and evasive a person is, the shorter the range of his interests. — Ayn Rand

It was useless to argue, she thought, and to wonder about people who would neither refute an argument nor accept it. — Ayn Rand

So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another - their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun. — 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

The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time. — Ayn Rand

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

To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be. — Ayn Rand

Nobody has ever given a reason why men should be their brother's keepers. — Ayn Rand

He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength. — Ayn Rand

No, justice has not ceased to exist. How could it? It is possible for men to abandon their sight of it, and then it is justice that destroys them. But it is not possible for justice to go out of existence, because one is an attribute of the other, because justice is the act of acknowledging that which exists. — Ayn Rand

Logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. — Ayn Rand

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish. — Ayn Rand

When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience. — Ayn Rand

Writing is serious business and not for any stray bastard that wants to try it. — 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

It's a law of survival, isn't it? - to seek the best. I didn't come for your sake. I came for mine. — Ayn Rand

The more propaganda ... conservatives spread for capitalist economics while at the same time preaching collectivism morally and philosophically , the more nails they'll drive into capitalism's coffin. — Ayn Rand

In a world that proclaims the non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst - in such a world, the best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies. — Ayn Rand

If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read:
To the glory of Man. — Ayn Rand

She was incapable of love for any object not of her own choice and she resented anyone's demand for it. — Ayn Rand

Nathaniel Taggart had been a penniless adventurer who had come from somewhere in New England and built a railroad across a continent, in the days of the first steel rails. His railroad still stood; his battle to build it had dissolved into a legend, because people preferred not to understand it or to believe it possible. — Ayn Rand

A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause. — Ayn Rand

It seemed natural; natural to the moment's peculiar reality that was sharply clear, but cut off from everything, immediate, but disconnected, like a bright island in a wall of fog, the heightened, unquestioning reality one feels when one is drunk. — Ayn Rand

Who is John Galt? — Ayn Rand

The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of a drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end result of the most profound, most solemn thinking. — Ayn Rand

From the screen, a huge white face had looked at him, a face with a mouth one wished one could wish to kiss, and eyes that made one wonder - a wonder which was pain - just what it was they were seeing. He felt as if there was something - deep in his brain, behind everything he thought and everything he was - which he did not know, but she knew, and he wished he did, and wondered whether he could ever know it, and should he, if he could, and why he wished — Ayn Rand

An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.' — Ayn Rand

She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an adversary worth matching. — Ayn Rand

Don't ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.
Dagny Taggart — Ayn Rand

Those who grant sympathy to guilt, grant none to innocence. — Ayn Rand

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue. — Ayn Rand

The political function of 'the right of free speech' is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forcible suppression - not to guarantee them the support, advantages, and rewards of a popularity they have not gained. — Ayn Rand

The sacred word: EGO — Ayn Rand

Man is an end in himself. — Ayn Rand

Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind. But Roark stood like that before a hostile crowd - and they knew suddenly that no hatred was possible to him. — Ayn Rand

A story is an end in itself. It is not written to teach, sell, explain or destroy anything. It is not written even to entertain. It is written as a man is born - an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity - an end in itself, not a means to an end. — Ayn Rand

When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him, by force. — Ayn Rand

Nothing can justify injustice. — Ayn Rand

We are now moving towards complete collectivism or socialism, a system under which everybody is enslaved to everybody. — Ayn Rand

Her face was made of angular planes, the shape of her mouth clear-cut, a sensual mouth held closed with inflexible precision. She kept her hands in the coat pockets, her posture taut, as if she resented immobility ... — Ayn Rand

Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end - the means of telling a story. — Ayn Rand

A moment or an eternity - did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist. — Ayn Rand

The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshipin g mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters; as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action. — Ayn Rand

Of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character - that — Ayn Rand

For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it. — Ayn Rand

My hands ... My spirit ... My sky ... My forest ... This earth of mine ... — Ayn Rand

The houses stood like men in unpressed suits, who had lost the desire to stand straight: — Ayn Rand

She stopped for the duration of a glance around her, as if to recapture the place, but there was no recognition of persons in her eyes, the glance merely swept through the room, as if making a swift inventory of physical objects. — Ayn Rand

More contemptible than a criminal, is the employer who rejects men for being too good. — Ayn Rand

I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think. — Ayn Rand

Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the need to impress. The determining motive of your house is in the house. The determining motive of the other is in the audience. — Ayn Rand

We have come to see how great is the unexplored. — Ayn Rand

I've always been short on time in my life, never on what to use it for. — Ayn Rand

Who pays for the orgy? — Ayn Rand

Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. — Ayn Rand

Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I'm not the Gail Wynand you'd heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you'd want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that's the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you'd want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn't be easy for you. — Ayn Rand

This god, this one word: I. — Ayn Rand

And man will go on. Man, not men. — Ayn Rand

Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and their night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.

~Equality 7-2521 (as Prometheus), pgs 103-104 — Ayn Rand

He raised his head and looked at her; she had not caught him noticing her approach; he looked up as if he expected her to be there, as if he knew she would be back. She saw the hint of a smile, more insulting than words. He sustained the insolence of looking straight at her, he would not move, he would not grant the concession of turning away - of acknowledging that he had no right to look at her in such manner. He had not merely taken that right, he was saying silently that she had given it to him. — Ayn Rand

Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy
a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. — Ayn Rand

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin. — Ayn Rand

Freedom of association includes the freedom not to associate. — Ayn Rand

You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached. — Ayn Rand

Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives - and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. — Ayn Rand

Dagny and Fransisco d'Anconia?" she said, smiling ruefully, in answer to the curiosity of her friends. "Oh no, it's not a romance. It's an international industrial cartel of some kind. — Ayn Rand

The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man's highest potential and strive to actualize it. The man-haters are those who regard man as a helpless, depraved, contemptible creature-and struggle never to let him discover otherwise. — Ayn Rand

I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place. — Ayn Rand

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

No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy. — Ayn Rand