Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Randwas a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful in America, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 February 1905
CitySaint Petersburg, Russia
CountryRussian Federation
The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.
Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.
If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged “good” can justify it-there can be no peace within a nation and no peace among nations.
The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. ... Collectivism is not the 'New Order of Tomorrow.' It is the order of a very dark yesterday.
Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future. We do know, but it can't be best until you know it.
The conservatives want to rule man's consciousness; the liberals, his body.