49 Quotes By Ayn Rand


Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
Ayn Rand on alone

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
Ayn Rand on architecture

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
Ayn Rand on architecture

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
Ayn Rand on best

Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
Ayn Rand on business

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
Ayn Rand on death

God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.
Ayn Rand on faith

Upper classes are a nation's past the middle class is its future.
Ayn Rand on future

God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.
Ayn Rand on god

Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
Ayn Rand on good

Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
Ayn Rand on government

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Ayn Rand on government

Potentially, 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.
Ayn Rand on government

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.
Ayn Rand on government

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.
Ayn Rand on happiness

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand on happiness

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Ayn Rand on history

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
Ayn Rand on hope

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
Ayn Rand on learning

Potentially, 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.
Ayn Rand on legal