I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'

Morally, the promise of an impossible “right” to economic security is an infamous attempt to abrogate the concept of rights. It can and does mean only one thing: a promise to enslave the men who produce, for the benefit of those who don’t.

The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.

Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries.

That which is not worth contemplating in life, is not worth recreating in art.

The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.

There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls; to accept 'just a few controls' is to surrender the principle of inalienable individual rights and to substitute for it the principle of the government’s unlimited, arbitrary power, thus delivering oneself into gradual enslavement. As an example of this process, observe the present domestic policy of the United States.