I want you, Hank. I’m much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you – and the only thing I’m ashamed of is that I did...

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his...

Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy...

To be free, a man must be free from his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

You’ll get everything society can give a man. You’ll keep all the money. You’ll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You’ll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I...

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things...

Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that’s real power.

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.

You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can’t let it slip by, as...

He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.

The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to...

There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and the air of the streets. Fear walks through the city, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare speak.

Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. Show me the person they sleep with and I will tell you their valuation of themselves.

No! I don’t want to speak of that! But I’m going to. I want you to hear. I want you to know what’s in store for you. There will be days when you’ll look at...

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

Never place your punch at the beginning of a column nor at the end. Sneak it in where it’s least expected. Fill a whole column with drivel, just to get in that one important line.

I don’t build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs.

Don’t fool yourself, my dear. You’re much worse than a bitch. You’re a saint. Which shows why saints are dangerous and undesirable.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by...

The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

For our face and body were beautiful. Our face was not like the faces of our brothers, for we felt not pity when looking upon it. Our body was not like the bodies of our...

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was useless, because his words sounded as if they were hitting a vacuum. There was no such person as Mrs. Wayne...

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live–that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and...

So you think that money is the root of all evil? […] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods...

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This...

But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture? He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.That, said the Dean, is the Parthenon.- So it is.- I haven’t...

The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.

That’s your cruelty, that’s what’s mean and selfish about you. If you loved your brother, you’d give him a job he didn’t deserve, precisely because he didn’t deserve it–that would be true love and kindness...

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

Do not ever say that the desire to ‘do good’ by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

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...

My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. . . Man must obtain...

Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.

Then she understood that what she needed was the motion to a purpose, no matter how small or in what form, the sense of an activity going step by step to some chosen end across...

Honest people are never touchy about the matter of being trusted.

Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a...

No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It’s so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. ‘Reason,’ Dr. Pritchett had told them, ‘is...

I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how...

Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.