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...
Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He...
Listen, here's something we can do: we can look at the moon, sometimes - and, you know, it's the same moon everywhere - and we would be looking at the same thing together that way, you see?
Lillian moved forward to meet her, studying her with curiosity. They had met before, on infrequent occasions, and she found it strange to see Dagny Taggart wearing an evening gown. It was a black dres...
It‘s so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I’ll ever understand.
It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious
It's strange. There's your life. You begin it, feeling that it's something so precious and rare, so beautiful that it's like a sacred treasure. Now it's over, and it doesn't make any difference to any...
It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman she is beauti...
It's because...you see, if we had souls, which we haven't, and if our souls met--yours and mine--they'd fight to the death. But after they had torn each other to pieces, to the very bottom, they'd see...
It is a sin to think words no others think
Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?
In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.
If a man says: But I realize that my natural endowments are mediocre—shall I then suffer, be ashamed, have an inferiority complex? The answer is: In the basic, crucial sphere, the sphere of morality a...
I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book is addressed to any reader who proves worthy of it.
I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The p...
He wanted her. He knew where to find her. He waited. It amused him to wait, because he knew that the waiting was unbearable to her. He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete...
He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. THe lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone- flowing. The s...
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 go out, we would know that...
He demanded of all people the one thing he had never granted anybody: obedience.
Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.