Ayn Rand Quotes

A leash is a rope with a noose at both ends.

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote. A majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority. The political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities, and the smallest minority on earth is the individual.

The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves.

"Look, Gail." Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. "Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life."

"Your strength?"

"Your work." He tossed the branch aside. "The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . . "

"You want to do it?"

"I might. If you offer me enough."

"Howard — anything you ask. Anything. I'd sell my soul..."

"That's the sort of thing I want you to understand. 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?"

People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been — for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.

These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much.

I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.

Fransisco, what's the most depraved type of human being?

-The man without purpose.

There is no affirmation without the one who affirms. in this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours

"There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Rearden," Francisco said softly, "except one: the refusal to think."

One must never allow oneself to acquire an exaggerated sense of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself with absolutes

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...

He never felt lonliness except when he was happy.