Ayn Rand

“Why did you decide to be an architect?" "I didn't know it then. But it's because I've never believed in God." "Come…

— Ayn Rand

“The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day.…

— Ayn Rand

Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make…

— Ayn Rand

Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an…

— Ayn Rand

“The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman…

— Ayn Rand

“I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I…

— Ayn Rand

Another current catch-phrase is the complaint that the nations of the world are divided into 'haves' and the 'have-nots.' Observe that the…

— Ayn Rand

My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider…

— Ayn Rand

Man holds these rights [life, liberty and property], not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective - as…

— Ayn Rand

“Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two…

— Ayn Rand

“That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't…

— Ayn Rand

“I am. I think. I will. My hands. . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . This earth…

— Ayn Rand

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

— Ayn Rand

You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on…

— Ayn Rand

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose . . . the fact that they were…

— Ayn Rand

Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the net is waiting, and…

— Ayn Rand

“the dark, cluttered, polished mahogany splendor of the Sanborns’ Victorian drawing room. Mr. Sanborn wavered. Roark asked, his arm sweeping out at…

— Ayn Rand

The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed,…

— Ayn Rand

“It's not just the kind of work you do; I wouldn't care, if you were an exhibitionist who's being different as a…

— Ayn Rand

Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their faces,…

— Ayn Rand

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...th at in order to produce, you need to obtain…

— Ayn Rand

“You called it selfish and cruel that men should trade value for value—you have now established an unselfish society where they trade…

— Ayn Rand

But I still wonder how it was possible, in those graceless years of transition, long ago, that men did not see whither…

— Ayn Rand

“He looked at the granite. To be cut, he thought, and made into walls. He looked at a tree. To be split…

— Ayn Rand

“There was no such person as Mrs. Wayne Wilmot; there was only a shell containing the opinions of her friends, the picture…

— Ayn Rand

“I think of man's magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks,…

— Ayn Rand

“But, you see, it's not what you do that matters really. It's only you." "Me what?" "Just you here. Or you in…

— Ayn Rand

“It is this insistence of man upon meaning that makes him so difficult. Once he realizes that he is of no importance…

— Ayn Rand

“Certainly, I approve of it. Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their…

— Ayn Rand

If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down…

— Ayn Rand

“Since there is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals, any claimed or implied…

— Ayn Rand

“Did it ever occur to you," asked Kira, "that I may be here for the very unusual, unnatural reason of wanting to…

— Ayn Rand

“Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not…

— Ayn Rand

He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points.

— Ayn Rand

“Throughout men’s history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the…

— Ayn Rand

“The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that…

— Ayn Rand

“Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get…

— Ayn Rand

The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property…

— Ayn Rand

Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind. Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and…

— 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…

— Ayn Rand