Quote

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

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
School
Theme
Ideas
Russia
Would
Asked
Men
Days
Anthem
Like
Heard
Individualism
World
Word
Attacks
Idea
Vicious
Lost
Soviet

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.
Ayn Rand
Image
The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
Ayn Rand
Image
One must differentiate between one's thoughts and one's emotions with full clarity and precision...No discussion, cooperation, agreement, or understanding is possible among men who substitute emotion for proof.
Ayn Rand
Image
Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart
Ayn Rand
Image
She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.
Ayn Rand
Image
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
Ayn Rand
Image
To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.
Ayn Rand
Image
Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.
Ayn Rand
Image
You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated
Ayn Rand
Image
Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.
Ayn Rand
Image
Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.
Ayn Rand
Image
In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
Ayn Rand
Image
You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value.
Ayn Rand
Image
The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
Ayn Rand
Image
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
Image
Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do.
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
Money is the root of all good.
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
When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.
Ayn Rand