Ayn Rand Quotes

“A whim is an emotion whose cause you neither know nor care to discover. Now what does it mean, to act on whim? It means that a man acts like a zombie, without any knowledge of what he deals with, what he wants to accomplish, or what motivates him. It means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity. Is this what you call juicy or colorful? I think the only juice that can come out of such a situation is blood. To act against the facts of reality can result only in destruction.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“Playboy: But you are interested in politics, or at least in political theory, aren’t you? Rand: Let me answer you this way: When I came here from Soviet Russia, I was interested in politics for only one reason—to reach the day when I would not have to be interested in politics. I wanted to secure a society in which I would be free to pursue my own concerns and goals, knowing that the government would not interfere to wreck them, knowing that my life, my work, my future were not at the mercy of the state or of a dictator’s whim. This is still my attitude today. Only today I know that such a society is an ideal not yet achieved, that I cannot expect others to achieve it for me, and that I, like every other responsible citizen, must do everything possible to achieve it. In other words, I am interested in politics only in order to secure and protect freedom.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“there is really only one proper function: the protection of individual rights.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“The act of thinking is man’s primary act of choice.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“A free mind and a free economy are corollaries. One can’t exist without the other.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of a man’s life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He does not know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot tell what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can enjoy nothing. He spends his life searching for some value which he will never find.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a “mainstream.” It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“Since Objectivism requires the use of one’s mind, those who attempt to take broad principles and apply them unthinkingly and indiscriminately to the concretes of their own existence find that it cannot be done. They are then compelled either to reject Objectivism or to apply it.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“If one feels compassion for the victims of a concentration camp, one cannot feel it for the torturers. If one does feel compassion for the torturers, it is an act of moral treason toward the victims.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“A free mind and a free economy are corollaries. One can’t exist without the other. The dollar sign, as the symbol of the currency of a free country, is the symbol of the free mind.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“The man who has no purpose, but has to act, acts to destroy others. That is not the same thing as a productive or creative purpose.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview

“The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself. It is this last that Galt’s statement summarizes.”
― Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview