Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart
Ayn Rand
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Feels
Afterwards
Firsts
First
Feel
More quotes by Ayn Rand
The conservatives want to rule man's consciousness the liberals, his body.
Ayn Rand
It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.
Ayn Rand
Psychologically, the choice to think or not is the choice to focus or not. Existentially, the choice to focus or not is the choice to be conscious or not. Metaphysically, the choice to be conscious or not is the choice of life or death.
Ayn Rand
It's true that there's no such thing as free will. We can't help what we are or what we do. It's not our fault. Nobody's to blame for anything. It's all in your background ... and your glands. If you're good, that's no achievement of yours - you were lucky in your glands. If you're rotten, nobody should punish you - you were unlucky, that's all.
Ayn Rand
Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.
Ayn Rand
Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?
Ayn Rand
The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
Ayn Rand
The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
Ayn Rand
An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.
Ayn Rand
One can study what exists and how consciousness functions but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
Ayn Rand
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.
Ayn Rand
Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
Ayn Rand
No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.
Ayn Rand
The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
Ayn Rand
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
There were things in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will remain.
Ayn Rand
Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal brutality is not idealistic, no matter what its purpose. 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
There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men.
Ayn Rand
Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.
Ayn Rand
The genius must have his freedom and his independence.
Ayn Rand