Top 500 Ayn Rand Quotes (2024 Update)
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301. “Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species – least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.”

— Ayn Rand

302. “She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.”

— Ayn Rand

303. “A ‘whim’ is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.”

— Ayn Rand

304. “One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term ’duty.”

— Ayn Rand

305. “Economics departments are dominated by Marxism, which is taken straight or on the rocks, in the form of Keynesianism.”

— Ayn Rand

306. “Did I feel a physical desire for him? I did. Was I moved by a passion of my body? I was. Have I experienced the most violent form of sensual pleasure? I have.”

— Ayn Rand

307. “Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we now see the capitalist system being discredited and destroyed all over the world, even though this system has given men the greatest material comforts.”

— Ayn Rand

308. “Don’t worry. They’re all against me. But I have one advantage: they don’t know what they want. I do.”

— Ayn Rand

309. “The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.”

— Ayn Rand

310. “For they have nothing to fight me with, save the brute force of their numbers. I have my mind.”

— Ayn Rand

311. “There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all.”

— Ayn Rand

312. “An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man’s value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man’s reason and his emotions.”

— Ayn Rand

313. “But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.”

— Ayn Rand

314. “Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.”

— Ayn Rand

315. “The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.”

— Ayn Rand

316. “The sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others.”

— Ayn Rand

317. “There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them.”

— Ayn Rand

318. “The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not ‘selflessness’ or ‘sacrifice,’ but integrity.”

— Ayn Rand

319. “To demand ‘sense’ is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.”

— Ayn Rand

320. “You can’t have your cake and let your neighbour eat it too.”

— Ayn Rand

321. “If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with.”

— Ayn Rand

322. “The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO.”

— Ayn Rand

323. “The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.”

— Ayn Rand

324. “Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.”

— Ayn Rand

325. “One loses everything when one loses one’s sense of humor.”

— Ayn Rand

326. “Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?”

— Ayn Rand

327. “If one’s actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.”

— Ayn Rand

328. “Man’s character is the product of his premises.”

— Ayn Rand

329. “The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.”

— Ayn Rand

330. “Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.”

— Ayn Rand

331. “If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor.”

— Ayn Rand

332. “You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can’t let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached.”

— Ayn Rand

333. “There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.”

— Ayn Rand

334. “If you want to feel good, be rational.”

— Ayn Rand

335. “I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.”

— Ayn Rand

336. “Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.”

— Ayn Rand

337. “Individualism regards man-every man-as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.”

— Ayn Rand

338. “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

339. “For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.”

— Ayn Rand

340. “Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.”

— Ayn Rand

341. “The attack on “selfishness” is an attack on man’s self-esteem; to surrender one, is to surrender the other.”

— Ayn Rand

342. “There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.”

— Ayn Rand

343. “Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper.”

— Ayn Rand

344. “Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history’s brilliant eras; whenever it fell, so did mankind.”

— Ayn Rand

345. “The more neurotic and evasive a person is, the shorter the range of his interests.”

— Ayn Rand

346. “What is kinder – to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance – or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?”

— Ayn Rand

347. “Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.”

— Ayn Rand

348. “It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth.”

— Ayn Rand

349. “There are no little people in America. There are only people, equal before the law, yearning to breathe free and wanting to achieve the best within them.”

— Ayn Rand

350. “What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”

— Ayn Rand