Ayn Rand
137 quotes
Biography
"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."
"The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity."
"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours."
"If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn."
"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."
"Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness."
"I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you."
"Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing."
"Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want."
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
"I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle."
"He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see."
"My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose."
"The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it."
"Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking."
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it."
"To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?"
"Who is John Galt?"
"I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach."
"I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference"
"I think, therefore I'll think."
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life."
"Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"
"I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between."
"I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it."