Quotes from Ayn Rand

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.

Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them.

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

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions.

Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another's values.

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

For the first time since her return, she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her feel alive, because it was worth feeling.

If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.

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

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.