Quotes from Ayn Rand

Morality pertains only to the sphere of man's free will - only to those actions which are open to his choice.

I don't approve of religion.

I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion - I am fighting for reason.

If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.

Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.

Romantic art is the fuel and the spark plug of a Man's soul. It's task is to set a soul on fire and never let it go out.

Romantic art is always stylized: the better the art, the cleaner and more attractive and intelligent the stylization.

As we gain knowledge, we do not become more certain, we become certain of more.

Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the anxioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it.

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

Professional intellectuals are the voice of a culture and are, therefore, its leaders, its integrators and its bodyguards.

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.

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.

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.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.

When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed

Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.

If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.

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.

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

Live a life as a monument to your soul.

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.