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
A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices.
Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.
Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.
Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.
I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life.
To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?
Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?
Don't think. Believe. Trust your heart, not your brain. Don't think. Feel. Believe.
One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves.
You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgement and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been calle anti social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads.
Man's basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know.
Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched".
Well, I always know what I want. And when you know what you want--you go toward it. Sometimes you go very fast, and sometimes only an inch a year. Perhaps you feel happier when you go fast. I don't know. I've forgotten the difference long ago, because it really doesn't matter, so long as you move.