This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.

She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which no human words could ever tell and she knew it now. She had been awaiting it...

An inventor is a man who asks ‘Why?’ of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.

And suddenly that we were laughing out loud, laughing as if there were no power left in us save laughter.

And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important… What sex should involve is a very serious relationship. Whether that relationship should...

She’s a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn’t be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind.

While a creator does and must worship Man (which means his own highest potentiality; which is his natural self-reverence), he must not make the mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to worship Mankind...

Why yes, I can,’ said Midas Mulligan, when he was asked whether he could name a person more evil than the man with a heart closed to pity. ‘The man who uses another’s pity for...

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

To irrational principles, one cannot be loyal. Ideas that are not derived from reality cannot be consistently practiced in reality.–as quoted by Leonard Peikoff in “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York...

I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it’s safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of the adversaries.

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on...

I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the...

Of course I need you. I go insane when I see you. You can do almost anything you wish with me. Is that what you want to hear? Almost, Dominique. And the things you couldn’t...

The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now...

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I...

Upper classes are a nation’s past; the middle class is its future.

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities.

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...