Quote

You were not born to be a second-hander. Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead

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
Hander
Gail
Fountainhead
Howard
Second
Born
Action

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.
Ayn Rand
Image
I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.
Ayn Rand
Image
Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
Ayn Rand
Image
All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.
Ayn Rand
Image
A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
Ayn Rand
Image
A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.
Ayn Rand
Image
The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
Ayn Rand
Image
There can be no compromise on moral principles.
Ayn Rand
Image
What do I think of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: I don't think of him. And the more I see, the less I think.
Ayn Rand
Image
But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.
Ayn Rand
Image
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.
Ayn Rand
Image
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...th at in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-you may know that your society is doomed.
Ayn Rand
Image
I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.
Ayn Rand
Image
Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
Ayn Rand
Image
Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you? He answered, Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one.
Ayn Rand
Image
Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
Ayn Rand
Image
The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.
Ayn Rand
Image
That which exists possesses identity he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.
Ayn Rand
Image
Dominique as Gail looks at her ... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.
Ayn Rand
Image
Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand