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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“In proportion to the mental energy he spent, the man who creates a new invention receives but a small percentage of his value in terms of material payment, no matter what fortune he makes, no matter what millions he earns. But the man who works as a janitor in the factory producing that invention, receives an enormous payment in proportion to the mental effort that his job requires of him. And the same is true of all men between, on all levels of ambition and ability.”

MenMatterJobsValuesEnergyTermAbilityLevelsEffortMillionsHe ManMaterialsAmbitionNo Matter WhatFortuneEnormousInventionProportionFactoriesPercentagesPaymentEgalitarianismJanitorNew Inventions
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the 'competition' between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of 'exploitation' for which you have damned the strong.”

MenValuesLeftStrongBrainHe ManMaterialsIntellectualWeakAddCompetitionBottomPatternsIntellectHopelessReceivingExploitationPaymentPyramidsBonusEgalitarianismIneptitude
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the "unfairness" of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact - in defiance of facts. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top - the aristocracy of non-value.”

MenDoeDifferentFactsLawValuesChoicesSocialEqualUniversalEqualityInequalityFacultyEstablishmentProposeDefiancePyramidsAristocracyAbolishUnfairnessEgalitarianismVolitionInvertedDifferent Choices
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.”

WayHas BeensMatterStatesReasonGovernmentFormEvilChurchEconomySourceSolutionsCapitalismEconomicsTradeProductionsSeparationBehalfInterventionChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateAbolitionLaissez FaireLaissez Faire Capitalism
Author:Ayn Rand
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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. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.”

MenMayMeanSelfUseGovernmentPurposeForceActingRightsViolenceProtectDefenseAgentsResortsPolicemenSelf DefenseUse Of ForcePhysical Violence
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.”

PeopleFeelsMindSoulGoalMoralPrinciplesEthicsGuiltLeavingBurdenDiscussionGreat MenOfferingResentmentFloatingAbstractionTheoreticalFutilityMoral PrinciplesUninspiring
Author:Ayn Rand
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“[What for] was the first question he asked about any activity proposed to him - and nothing would make him act, if he found no valid answer. He flew through the days of his summer month like a rocket, but if one stopped him in mid-flight, he could always name the purpose of his every random moment. Two things were impossible to him: to stand still or to move aimlessly.”

IfsFirstsStillsTwoMomentsMovingPurposeFoundNamesAnswersImpossibleMonthsActivitySummerFlightTwo ThingsRocketsFlew
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“Then no rightful cause was left, and the pain of anger was turning into the shameful pain of submission. He had no right to condemn anyone - he thought - to denounce anything, to fight and die joyously, claiming the sanctity of virtue. The broken promises, the unconfessed desires, the betrayal, the deceit, the lies, the fraud - he was guilty of them all. What form of corruption could he scorn? Degrees do not matter, he thought; one does not bargain about inches of evil.”

DoeMatterPainFormLyingDesireDiesFightingEvilLeftCausesVirtueBrokenPromiseDegreesCorruptionBetrayalGuiltyDeceitFraudInchesSubmissionScornBargainsShamefulSanctityBroken Promises
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Look around you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man’s mind. You will see man’s unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind. And if you ask me, what is greatness? I will answer, it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.”

IfsMenMindLooksSelfReasonPurposeValuesThreeAsksAnswersSelf EsteemGreatnessAchievementCapacityFundamentalsMonstersEsteemAsk MeLive ByFacultyHelplessUnlimited
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive — a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society — a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself.... The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.”

KnowsMenDoeReasonFormSpiritPurposeExistenceConsciousnessParticularConceptsDefinitionsMusclesConformityOrganismsZombie
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most spectacular achievements ever recorded in the economic history of mankind. What reward did they receive from our culture and its intellectuals? The position of a hated, persecuted minority. The position of a scapegoat for the evils of the bureaucrats.”

CultureEvilBusinessClassEconomicMankindPositionGeniusAchievementRewardsHatedProductiveMinoritiesBusinessmanSpectacularBureaucratsPersecutedScapegoatEconomic History
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences, produces a slow, gradual, day-by-day erosion of man's emotional vitality, which he may ignore or repress, but which is recorded by the relentless computer of his subconscious mechanism that registers an ebbing flow, then a trickle, then a few last drops of fuel--until the day when his inner motor stops and he wonders desperately why he has no desire to go on, unable to find any definable cause of his hopeless, chronic sense of exhaustion.”

MenMayLastsDesireCausesPleasureWonderProduceEmotionalGoes OnComputerFlowFuelHopelessMechanismLazinessSubconsciousVitalityEnjoyableMotorRelentlessRegisterExhaustionErosion
Book:The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought
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“The adversary she found herself forced to fight was not worth matching or beating; it was not a superior ability which she would have found honour in challenging; it was ineptitude - a grey spread of cotton that seemed soft and shapeless, that could offer no resistance to anything or anybody, yet managed to be a barrier in her way. She stood, disarmed, before the riddle of what made this possible, she could find no answer.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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