Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenValuesIfsThinkingReasonMindEvilPhilosophyKnowsObjectivismMeanLibertyLifeMoralityFountainheadVirtueAtlas ShruggedMoralRationalPeople

Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level.”

MenWantDoeSelfFactsLyingValuesEvilInterestDifferencesLevelsMoralRegardFundamentalsProductionsPursueSelf InterestRobbersRobbery
Book:Ayn Rand Reader
Create image

“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”

InspirationalSelfPainHappinessPurposeValuesResultsMoralHonestyIntegrityAchievementWittyProofLoyaltyLoyalIndulgenceMindlessSelf IndulgenceMoral CodeHappy InspirationalLeadership IntegrityInspirational AchievementEthics And IntegrityAchieving HappinessMoral IntegrityMorals And Integrity
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
Create image

“So you think that money is the root of all evil? [...] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?”

ThinkingMenGivingMadeAbleValuesEvilForceWishMoneyDealsPrinciplesProduceTearsMaterialsProductsShapesToolsRootsClaimsTradeMaking MoneyGoodsValue Of MoneyMoney Is The Root Of All EvilMoney Is EvilMoochers
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
Create image

“I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object...Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves "pro-life".”

MindHumansReasonRunningTodayValuesHuman BeingsPiecesFieldsObjectsDegreesAmbitionProjectsIntellectualHatredHuman LifeAbortionNonsenseDishonestyPro LifeCrusadesComplianceEmbryosAgainst AbortionAgainst Love
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“You still love me - even if there's one expression of it that you will always feel and want, but will not give me no longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values.”

IfsMenWantGivingFeelsStillsMatterValuesAnswersGreaterExpressionRootsGive MeNo Matter WhatResponseGrantsPaymentAnother ManTreason
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“But this was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve. Her life and her values could not bring her to that, she thought; she had never found beauty in longing for the impossible and had never found the possible to be beyond her reach.”

MenHumansValuesFoundViewsVisionDestinyImpossibleAchieveLongingShiningHatedRejectedDoomedAspireUnattainable
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values; the bureaucrat's tool is fear.”

MenMeanPoliticalValuesLibertyEconomicCapitalismNegativeEconomicsToolsDestructionThreatRewardsPunishmentInjuryOfferingBusinessmanIncentivesPaymentPolitical PowerBureaucratsImprisonmentEconomic Power
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance.”

KnowsMenNeedsMindMeanPhilosophyValuesOrderChoicesUniverseChanceEthicsIncludingChosenAlternativesCodeMetaphysicsEpistemology
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.”

MenHumansDoneValuesAbilityPrinciplesVirtueTalentDegreesStandardsDignityIndependenceRemainsWorkersDetermineSubstitutesInitiativeVaryBasic PrinciplesGaugesFountainheadPersonal DignityPersonal Love
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
Create image

“A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement.”

MenWantGivingSelfCertainValuesChoicesResultsVisionSelf EsteemTypeAchievementHighestFundamentalsConvictionPossessionSurrenderHardestAdmireEsteemConquerStrongestPermitSense Of SelfHeroines
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“There must be only three supreme values which govern a person's life: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge--Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve--Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.”

ThinkingMenMindMeanPersonsSelfReasonPurposeValuesChoicesThreeJusticeExistenceConsciousnessVirtueAchieveSelf EsteemHonestyPrideIntegrityToolsRelationIndependenceWorthySupremeEsteemCertaintyRationalityCompetentHonesty Integrity
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.”

MindDoeRealStatesRealityHappinessJoyValuesAchieveDestructionGuiltInner PeaceProducersPenaltiesContradictoryClashEscapingDrunkards
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“I love you. As the same value, as the same expression, with the same pride and the same meaning as I love my work, my mills, my Metal, my hours at a desk, at a furnace, in a laboratory, in an ore mine, as I love my ability to work, as I love the act of sight and knowledge, as I love the action of my mind when it solves a chemical equation or grasps a sunrise, as I love the things I've made and the things I've felt, as *my* product, as *my* choice, as a shape of my world, as my best mirror, as the wife I've never had, as that which makes all the rest of it possible: as my power to live.”

WorldMindMadeActionValuesChoicesFeltHoursAbilityWifeLove YouMinesExpressionProductsPrideShapesSightMirrorsSolveChemicalsMetalsDesksSunriseEquationsLaboratoryMillsOf My MindFurnaces
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
Create image

“Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth”

MenMindPersonsEarthJoyValuesFightingKnowingVirtuePrideMoralityBattleGoodnessAchievementEssenceAbsolutesRationalCertaintySovereignGrandeurRadiantRectitude
Book:Atlas Shrugged
Create image

“Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.”

LovePersonsSelfJoyValuesLove IsExistenceLove YouSelf EsteemExpressionGainsMereResponseSelfishEsteemOne LoveAssertion
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
Create image

“Why is it immoral for you to desire, but moral for others to do so? Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away? And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it? If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it?”

IfsGivingDesireValuesAcceptingMoralProduceSelfishSelfishnessSelflessVirtuousImmoralViciousNot Selfish
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.”

ValuesSocialCausesLibertyPrinciplesEconomicDependsConsequenceEconomicsVoteMajorityStructureTyrannyInstancePrimariesVotersUnlimitedRight To VoteSocial SystemsImplementingMajority Rule
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image

“"Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."”

MenGivingLongFactsValuesChoicesFearResponsibilityMoralPrinciplesAtheismJudgingMurderVictimPreparedOneselfRageChecksTortureStakesJudgedBlankBe PreparedNeutralityCondemningMoral ValuesMoral PrinciplesMoral ResponsibilityAbdicationBlank Check
Author:Ayn Rand
Create image

“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

“You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.”

ThinkingMenLifeNeedsTryingEnoughShowsRealityTodayLife IsValuesHouseSocialCausesEffortPayRocksTomorrowMoralityMouthsDeserveClaimsVictimSeedsNobleDesertIslandsSandClothingsHarvestCoinsNobilityWipeDevouring
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
Create image