Ayn Rand Quotes About Earth

• The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophy, Humor, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.125, Penguin

• Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

  Ayn Rand

  Freedom, Rights, Political

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.100, Penguin

• Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Inspirational, Success, Acceptance

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.105, Penguin

• Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

  Ayn Rand

  Dream, Happy Life, Greatness

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1850, Penguin

• For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Sacrifice, Self

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.96, Penguin

• Look, Gail." Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. "Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life." "Your strength?" "Your work." He tossed the branch aside. "The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . .

  Ayn Rand

  Hands, Tree, Looks

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.711, Penguin

• Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth

  Ayn Rand

  Fighting, Pride, Men

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.817, Hamilton Books

• Capitalism has created the highest standard of living ever known on earth. The evidence is incontrovertible. The contrast between West and East Berlin is the latest demonstration, like a laboratory experiment for all to see. Yet those who are loudest in proclaiming their desire to eliminate poverty are loudest in denouncing capitalism. Man's well-being is not their goal.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, East Berlin, Goal

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.126, Penguin

• And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.

  Ayn Rand

  Pride, Men, Joy

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.47, Xist Publishing

• 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 must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Religious, Animal, Men

• Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through.

  Ayn Rand

  Sleep, Men, Break Through

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.51, Xist Publishing

• At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Kings, Men

  Ayn Rand (2015). “Anthem”, p.54, Xist Publishing

• I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

  Ayn Rand

  Happiness, Being Happy, Philosophy

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.46, Xist Publishing

• And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO

  Ayn Rand

  Heart, Cutting, Ego

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.51, Xist Publishing

• Ideas are the greatest and most crucially practical power on earth.

  Ayn Rand

  Ideas, Earth, Practicals

• Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Men, Fire

• And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.

  Ayn Rand

  Giving, Trying, Answers

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.328, Penguin

• For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, then riding on the shoulders of your guilt, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.

  Ayn Rand

  Running, Joy, Religion

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.124, Penguin

• They had rejected the soul-body dichotomy, with its two corollaries: the impotence of man's mind and the damnation of this earth; they had rejected the doctrine of suffering as man's metaphysical fate, they proclaimed man's right to the pursuit of happiness and were determined to establish on earth the conditions required for man's proper existence, by the "unaided" power of their intellect.

  Ayn Rand

  Fate, Pursuit Of Happiness, Men

• What I want you to understand, is the full evil of those who claim to have become convinced that this earth, by its nature, is a realm of malevolence where the good has no chance to win. Let them check their premises. Let them check their standards of value. Let them check - before they grant themselves the unspeakable license of evil-as-necessity - whether they know what is the good and what are the conditions it requires.

  Ayn Rand

  Winning, Evil, Want

  Ayn Rand (1957). “Atlas Shrugged”

• Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum? Give me an unobstructed right-of-way and I'll show them how to move the earth!

  Ayn Rand

  Moving, Giving, Earth

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.189, Penguin

• The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men.

  Ayn Rand

  Independent, Men, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.76, Penguin

• I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers

  Ayn Rand

  Believe, Animal, Men

• She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer. - Dagny Taggart

  Ayn Rand

  Distance, Past, Rivers

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1972, Penguin

• It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect.

  Ayn Rand

  Song, Eye, Thinking

  Ayn Rand (2012). “Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)”, p.101, BookCaps Study Guides

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