1,908 Quotes by Ayn Rand

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.

She found a dark satisfaction in pain—because that pain came from him.

And she thought, with a vicious thrill, of what these people would do if they read her mind in this moment; if they knew that she was thinking of a man in a quarry, thinking of his body with a sharp intimacy as one does not think of another’s body but only of one’s own. She smiled; the cold purity of her face prevented them from seeing the nature of that smile.

Do not let the hero in your soul parish, in lonely frustration, for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Art is inextricably tied to man's survival - not to his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness.

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

And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.

A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.

The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.