Ayn Rand Quotes
Ayn Rand was a philosopher and novelist who is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She was a proponent of laissez faire capitalism and Objectivism, a philosophical system she developed which holds that the only moral code is one that upholds the rational self-interest of individuals. Rand’s quotes are famous for their biting wit and uncompromising views.
Ayn Rand was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, and playwright. She is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing the philosophical system known as Objectivism.
Ayn Rand Quotes
“If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. ”
― Ayn Rand
“No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It’s so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.”
― Ayn Rand
“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand
“When I die I hope to go to heaven–whatever that is–and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”
― Ayn Rand
“But there are people who’ll try to hurt you through the good they see in you–knowing that it’s the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don’t let it break you when you discover that.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“To say “I love you” one must know first how to say the “I”.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Related: Motivational Quotes for Students to Study Hard
“The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
― Ayn Rand
“A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
“I am. I think. I will.”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
― Ayn Rand
“He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.”
― Ayn Rand
“My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.”
― Ayn Rand, Anthem
“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul – would you understand why that’s much harder?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.”
― Ayn Rand
“Don’t fool yourself, my dear. You’re much worse than a bitch. You’re a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched”.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”
― 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, Atlas Shrugged
“A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.”
― Ayn Rand
“I love you so much that nothing can matter to me – not even you…Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“The most depraved type of human being … (is) the man without a purpose.”
― Ayn Rand
“Who is John Galt?”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can’t stand still. It must grow or perish.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“I am, therefore I’ll think.”
― Ayn Rand
“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
― Ayn Rand
“I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.”
― Ayn Rand
“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.”
― Ayn Rand
“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit.”
― Ayn Rand
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk.”
― Ayn Rand
“There is no such thing as a lousy job – only lousy men who don’t care to do it.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner!”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.”
― Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It?
“Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?”
― Ayn Rand
“Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“What is man? He’s just a collection of chemicals with delusions of grandeur.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.”
― Ayn Rand
“She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness…”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.”
― Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
“One loses everything when one loses one’s sense of humor.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“In this world, either you’re virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“I could die for you. But I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, live for you.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind. ”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Self respect is something that can’t be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man’s pretense at it.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn’t hold a stillborn aspiration. I’d want to have it, to make it, to live it.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“I don’t wish to be the symbol of anything. I’m only myself.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves-or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.”
― Ayn Rand
“Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.”
― Ayn Rand
“Never ask people about your work.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“But you see, the measure of hell you’re able to endure is the measure of your love.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand was a philosopher and novelist who is best known for her novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She was a strong advocate for laissez faire capitalism and individual liberty. She is also well-known for her quotes, which espouse her beliefs in these areas.
