Ayn Rand: Trending quotes

“I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life.”

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.”

Letter to H.L. Mencken July 28, 1934.

“Capitalism is the only system where such men are free to function and where progress is accompanied, not by forced privations, but by a constant rise in the general level of prosperity, of consumption and of enjoyment of life.”

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

“When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"”

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“Errors of knowledge are not breaches of morality; no proper moral code can demand infallibility or omniscience.”

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.”

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Ayn Rand book The Romantic Manifesto

Source: The Romantic Manifesto (1969), Chapter 3 ("Art and Cognition")

“The second handers offer substitutes for competence such as love, charm, kindness - easy substitutes - and there is no substitute for creation.”

“When I say “capitalism,” I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.”

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

“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.”

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Ayn Rand book Philosophy: Who Needs It

Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)

“Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.”

Ayn Rand book The Voice of Reason

The Voice of Reason (1989)

“If you mean whose side one should be on, Israel or the Arabs, I would certainly say Israel because it’s the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages who have not changed for years and who are racist and who resent Israel because it’s bringing industry, intelligence, and modern technology into their stagnation.”

“An individualist is a man who says: "I'll not run anyone's life – nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone – nor sacrifice anyone to myself."”

Q and A session during taping of Donohue, Live in New York (1979) Ayn Rand on Israel and the Middle East https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uHSv1asFvU

“The actions of all group leaders throughout history have had one common element: altruism - common good of the collective. Religious leaders and the "moral" majority condemn the likes of Hitler, Stalin, etc. but their movements and foundations are alike.”

Textbook of Americanism http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/textbook.htm (1946).

“[On the attendees at the launch of Apollo 11] Those people were not a stampeding herd, nor a manipulated mob; they did not wreck the Florida communities, they did not devastate the countryside, they did not throw themselves, like whining thugs, at the mercy of their victims - they did not create any victims. They came as responsible individuals able to project the reality of two or three days ahead, and to provide for their own needs. There were people of every age, creed, color, educational level and economic status. They lived and slept in tents, or in their cars, some for several days, in great discomfort and unbearable heat; they did it gamely, cheerfully, gaily; they projected a general feeling of confident goodwill, the bond of a common enthusiasm; they created a public spectacle of responsible privacy - and they departed as they had come, without benefit of press agents.”

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

“Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.”

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

“The most profound breach in this country is not between the rich and the poor, but between the people and the intellectuals. In their view of life, the American people are predominantly Apollonian. The mainstream intellectuals are Dionysian. This means the people are reality-oriented, common sense-oriented, technology-oriented. The intellectuals call this "materialistic," and "middle-class." The intellectuals are emotion-oriented, and seek in panic an escape from a reality they are unable to deal with, and from a technological civilization that ignores their feelings.”

Journals of Ayn Rand (1997)

“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.”

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Ayn Rand book The Voice of Reason

The Voice of Reason (1989)

“America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

“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.”

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)