Quotes from Ayn Rand

those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism.

A hint of the smile remained in his features at all times, particularly when he listened; it was a look of good-natured amusement, as if he were swiftly and patiently discarding the irrelevant in the words he heard and going straight to the point a moment ahead of the speaker.

How can one deal in truth when one deals with the public? I don't understand you, she said very quietly. Questions of truth do not enter into social issues. No principles have ever had any effect on society. What, then, directs men's actions? He shrugged. The expediency of the moment

I'm not sure we're right to quit, you and I, when we should have fought them. But there is no way to fight. It's surrender, if we leave—and surrender, if we remain. I don't know what is right any longer." "Check your premises, Dagny. Contradictions don't exist.

money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose—to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury—he's completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They're second-handers. Look

There's a way to solve every dilemma of that kind, Mr. Rearden. Check your premises.

If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing.

Si tienes éxito, algún fracasado será tu dueño; si fracasas, algún triunfador será tu siervo.

I'm working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life. It used to take me five hours to fill that tank. It now takes three. The two I saved are mine—as pricelessly mine as if I moved my grave two further hours away for every five I've got. It's two hours released from one task, to be invested in another—two more hours in which to work, to grow, to move forward. That's

she thought of the world's code that worshipped white lies as an act of mercy—she felt a stab of a revulsion against that code, suddenly seeing its full ugliness for the first time

Sexual love, Peter, is a profoundly selfish emotion. And selfish emotions are not the ones that lead to happiness.

a new biological species, the hit-and-run businessmen, who did not stay in any line of business longer than the span of one deal, who had no payrolls to meet, no overhead to carry, no real estate to own, no equipment to build, whose

One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name. It's one or the other. One doesn't love God and sacrilege impartially. Except when one doesn't know that sacrilege has been committed. Because one doesn't know God.

Integrity does not consist of loyalty to ones subjective whims, but of loyalty to rational principles

Ellos eran el mundo; ellos y no los que permanecían agazapados en rincones obscuros, mendigando o amenazando, a la vez que mostraban sus abiertas llagas, como única aspiración a la vida y la virtud.

I don't usually let things happen to me. I made a mistake this time. I shouldn't have waited for you to throw me out. I should have left long ago.

What was his aim in life? Greatness—in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy—all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn

A través de toda la oscuridad, a través de toda la vergüenza de que son capaces los hombres, el espíritu del hombre permanecerá vivo en esta tierra.

he had acquired the conviction that one had to concern oneself with the rational, not the insane—that one had to seek that which was right, because the right answer always won—that the senseless, the wrong, the monstrously unjust could not work, could not succeed, could do nothing but defeat itself.

Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn.

do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own—they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal—for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They

Notice the malice toward an independent man. Look back at your own life. Howard, and at the people you've met. They know. They're afraid. You're a reproach.

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.

Why would you want it, if it's not the truth?" he asked. "What for?" "Now you see, that's the cruelty of conscientious people. You wouldn't understand it—would you?—if I answered that real devotion consists of being willing to lie, cheat and fake in order to make another person happy—to create for him the reality he wants, if he doesn't like the one that exists." "No