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Rights Quotes by Ayn Rand

58 Rights quotes by Ayn Rand

All Rights quotes Ayn Rand’s page

A lone individual standing against a crowd illustrates the idea that rights belong to each person, not to a majority. The quotes argue that capitalism protects these rights, while collectivism tries to erase them by placing the group above the person. They also state that no government or mob may lawfully enslave an individual, because freedom is a personal right.

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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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Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

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

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

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Whoever defends his own rights defends the rights of all.

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Capitalism is our only moral system. All other systems take advantage of man's rights and liberties.

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

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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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Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

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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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“A right doesn't include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation…

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Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality,…

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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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If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived…

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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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There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept 'just a few controls' is to surrender the principle of…

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Morally, the promise of an impossible “right” to economic security is an infamous attempt to abrogate the concept of rights. It can…

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If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong…

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Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation…

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“I shall remind you that"rights" are a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context, that…

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The source of the government's authority is “the consent of the governed.” This means that the government is not the ruler, but…

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

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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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“The source of man's rights is not divine law or a congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A ___…

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Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet…

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Individualism regards man - every man - as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a…

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At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he…

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For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man.…

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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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The doctrine that 'human rights' are superior to 'property rights' simply means that some human beings have the right to make property…

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The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.

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

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

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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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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

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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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One method of destroying a concept is by diluting its meaning. Observe that by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving,…

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Any alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.

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There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule, executions without trial or with a mock trial…

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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.