Quotes from Ayn Rand

Through the dry phases of calculations in her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the hard, exhilarating pleasure of action.

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.

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.

She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.

You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference

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.

I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.

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.

Who is John Galt?

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.

Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.

But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

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.

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.

There is no such thing as a lousy job - only lousy men who don't care to do it.

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.

Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment's torture.

If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.