Quotes from Ayn Rand

A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality.

My real soul...? It's real only when it's independent...

She thought that relaxation was attractive only in those for whom it was an unnatural state; then even limpness acquired purpose.

This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them.

She noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer.

Freedom comes from seeing the ignorance of your critics and discovering the emptiness of their virtue

She saw the faces streaming past her, the faces made alike by fear—fear as a common denominator, fear of themselves, fear of all and of one another, fear making them ready to pounce upon whatever was held sacred by any single one they met... She had kept herself clean and free in a single passion—to touch nothing. She had liked facing them in the streets, she had liked the impotence of their hatred, because she offered them nothing to be hurt.

Art is inextricably tied to man's survival - not to his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness.

My dear fellow, who will let you?" "That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?

Reason is the faculty that perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by his senses. The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason; his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind.

We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape.

What I mean is, what makes people unhappy is not too little choice, but too much, said Mitchell Layton. having to decide, always to decide, torn every which way all of the time. Now in a society of pattern, a man could feel safe. Nobody would come to him all the time pestering him to do something. Nobody would have to do anything. What I mean is, of course, except working for the common good.

joy is one's fuel.

There is no difference between the principles, policies and practical results of socialism—and those of any historical or prehistorical tyranny. Socialism is merely democratic absolute monarchy—that is, a system of absolutism without a fixed head, open to seizure of power by all corners, by any ruthless climber, opportunist, adventurer, demagogue or thug.

By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an invention of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner—check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Life...had been defined as motion; man's life was purposeful motion; what was the state of a being to whom purpose and motion were denied, a being held in chains but left to breathe and to see all the magnificence of the possibilities he could have reached, left to scream "Why?" and to be shown the muzzle of a gun as sole explanation?

He saw, on their faces, that stubbornly evasive look...the look of a man cheating himself of his own consciousness.

People turned to look at Howard Roark as he passed. Some remained staring after him with sudden resentment. They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct his presence awakened in most people. Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty. He could have walked there naked without concern.

We do not know why we think of them. We do not know why, when we think of them, we feel of a sudden that the earth is good and that it is not a burden to live.

His glance was like a plea, like the cry for help of a man who could never cry.

The Council of American Builders met once a month and engaged in no tangible activity beyond listening to speeches and sipping an inferior brand of root beer. Its membership did not grow fast in quantity or quality. There were no concrete results achieved.

Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgements integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him–lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss.

I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I've always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I've always recognized it at once—and it's the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters.

The inexplicable is always terrifying. But it wouldn't be so frightening if you stopped to ask yourself whether there's ever been any reason why you should have been at the top... Oh, come, Peter, smile, I'm only kidding. One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.