Quotes by Ayn Rand
Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.
Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.
There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.
Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.
Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.
We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.
The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.
The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z".
If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.
Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed
The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. If bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you.
You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.
The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.