My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that โdoesnโt count,โ i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational โ not relating their one action or one conviction to another.
Ayn RandWe'll meet again. We'll meet when years have passed, and years make such a difference, don't they?
Ayn RandEver since Kant divorced reason from reality, his intellectual descendants have been diligently widening the breach.
Ayn RandThe right to life is the source of all rights -- and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Ayn RandWe are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.
Ayn RandSelf-esteem is reliance on one's power to think... The man of authentic self-confidence is the man who relies on the judgment of his own mind.
Ayn RandThe three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, 'A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.' 'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Francisco.
Ayn Rand