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Individual Quotes by Ayn Rand

50 Individual quotes by Ayn Rand

All Individual quotes Ayn Rand’s page

Ayn Rand champions individual rights as the core of capitalism, rejecting the idea that the collective can outweigh a single person. She calls the word “We” a monster that hides plunder and misery. Her quotes argue that protecting the individual from both government and mob is the true purpose of law.

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A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

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The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own…

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Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

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

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A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.

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America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.

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The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights...

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Capitalism is based on individual rights - not on the sacrifice of the individual to the 'public good' of the collective.

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Laissez-faire capitalism is the only social system based on the recognition of individual rights and, therefore, the only system that bans force…

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In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or…

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A Conformist is a man who declares, "It's true because others believe it" - but an Individualist is NOT a man who…

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Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I…

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I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.

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“The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known…

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But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such…

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Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

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America's skyscrapers were not built by public funds nor for a public purpose: they were built by the energy, initiative and wealth…

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Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, the idea that 'the…

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A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of…

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Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective…

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If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that…

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The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of…

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The government's only proper job is to protect individual rights against violence by force or fraud ... to protect men from foreign…

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“I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I…

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“For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be…

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“There's something I would like to understand. And I don't think anyone can explain it. . . There's your life. You begin…

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“Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends…

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Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.

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A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort ... is not strictly speaking a society, but a mob…

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Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of…

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Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions…

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Any group or "collective", large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the…

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Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group - whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism…

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Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression "individual rights"? is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes…

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When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members,…

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Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights; it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force…

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Any group or "collective," large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the…

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The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals ... it does not prescribe the conduct of private…

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Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe,…

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“I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn…

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More by Ayn Rand

There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.

She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment…

“This was reality, she thought, this sense of clear outlines, of purpose, of lightness, of hope.”

A “collective” mind does not exist. It is merely the sum of endless numbers of individual minds. If we have an endless number of…

Lobbying' is the activity of attempting to influence legislation by privately influencing the legislators. It is the result and creation of a mixed economy-of…

“She moved her hand and let it rest against his. He did not withdraw his fingers and he did not pretend indifference. She bent…

This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before.

“There was still one response, the greatest, that she had missed. She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as…

Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to…

“We are fornicating in the sight of six billion people.”

“She was fifteen when it occurred to her for the first time that women did not run railroads and that people might object. To…

Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long…

Have you felt it too? Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you- except the things that count? And your most…

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of…

We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.