Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenValuesIfsThinkingReasonMindEvilPhilosophyKnowsObjectivismMeanLibertyLifeMoralityFountainheadVirtueAtlas ShruggedMoralRationalPeople

Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church.”

WayMeanStatesReasonValuesChurchLibertyPracticePureCapitalismEconomicsIndividualitySeparationPursuitLaissez FaireLaissez Faire Capitalism
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible noble purpose, but to plain, naked human evil.”

HumansMeanPurposeEvilAsksRealizingAnswersEffortBlindSlaveDefenseNobleTyrannyNakedOppressionPropagandaNovelistsProtestRebellionTyrantsDictatorshipSavagesHelplessLowestTotalitarianismPeasantsFamous WomenChained
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
Create image

“The right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.”

MenMeanLife IsEffortRightsProduceHe ManProductsSourcePropertySlaveProperty RightsImplementationRight To Life
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
Create image

“An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide it with an automatic code of action, an automatic knowledge of what is good for it or evil... Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.”

MenMeanActionFacesChoicesEvilAnimalParticularSurvivalSpeciesSensesAlternativesCodeDistinctionSustainingEvil Man
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
Create image

“You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service--it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue.”

MenMeanCountryEnemyVirtueRiskMoralitySlaveDefenseEnormousChosenNovelistsInsultServiceDedicatedSelflessUnwillingSelfless ServiceInsults You
Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It
Create image

“Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, 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.”

MeanMadeEyeMinesSourceCreatingCapacityConnectedRationalCoalSymphonyIdentification
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
Create image

“There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .”

PeopleMindMeanIdeasEndsMatterYouthFundamentalsConvictionAcquire
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
Create image

“A majority vote is not an epistemological validation of an idea. Voting is merely a proper political device--within a strictly, constitutionall y delimited sphere of action--for choosing the practical means of implementing a society’s basic principles. But those principles are not determined by vote.”

MeanIdeasActionPoliticalPrinciplesVoteMajorityDeterminedPracticalsVotingDevicesSpheresValidationBasic PrinciplesImplementingMajority Vote
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason.”

IfsMenWantMeanReasonFactsForceWishDealsConsciousnessSatisfactionSurrenderObedienceAgreementDictatorConsentCraveCravingMysticAssertionWhimDictating
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“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
Create image