Quote

Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.

Ayn Rand

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ayn Rand
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: February 2
Died: 1982
Died: March 6
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
St. Petersburg
Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
Action
Impose
Remember
Define
Men
Obligation
Protect
Principles
Rights
Moral
Freedom
Obligations

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.
Ayn Rand
Image
Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum? Give me an unobstructed right-of-way and I'll show them how to move the earth!
Ayn Rand
Image
An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.
Ayn Rand
Image
Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
Ayn Rand
Image
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
Ayn Rand
Image
A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
Ayn Rand
Image
If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.
Ayn Rand
Image
The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
Ayn Rand
Image
Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values the bureaucrat's tool is fear.
Ayn Rand
Image
What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.
Ayn Rand
Image
Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.
Ayn Rand
Image
Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.
Ayn Rand
Image
He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it or dismiss it.
Ayn Rand
Image
An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.'
Ayn Rand
Image
But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.
Ayn Rand
Image
A rational process is a moral process.
Ayn Rand
Image
An irresponsible person is a person who makes vague promises, then breaks his word, blames it on circumstances and expects other people to forgive it.
Ayn Rand
Image
Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.
Ayn Rand
Image
Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
Ayn Rand
Image
I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'
Ayn Rand