Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was an Objectivist philosopher and author.
Found 26 thoughts of Ayn Rand
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand
Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
Ayn Rand
The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.
Ayn Rand
The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
Ayn Rand
Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.
Ayn Rand
From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.
Ayn Rand
To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I."
Ayn Rand
Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness.
Ayn Rand
Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.
Ayn Rand
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
Ayn Rand
Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
Ayn Rand
It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.
Ayn Rand
When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
Ayn Rand
If men want to oppose war, it is *statism* that they must oppose.
Ayn Rand
Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.
Ayn Rand
Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions.
Ayn Rand
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
Ayn Rand
The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
A private individual may do anything except that which is legally forbidden; A government individual may do nothing except that which is legally permitted.
Ayn Rand
Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Ayn Rand
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments.
Ayn Rand
A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
Ayn Rand
