Ayn Rand Quotes About History

• Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.

  Ayn Rand

  Selfish, Names, History

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”

• In western civilization, the period ruled by mysticism is known as the 'Dark Ages' and the 'Middle Ages'. I will assume that you know the nature of that period and the state of human existence in those ages. The Renaissance broke the rules of the mystics. "Renaissance" means the "rebirth". Few people today will care to remind you that it was a rebirth of reason - of man's mind.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Dark, Men

• It is not as late as you think. It is merely early - in the age of the rebirth of individualism.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, History, Age

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.336, Penguin

• These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Freedom, Book

  Ayn Rand (2012). “Study Guide: Anthem (Study Gudie and Book)”, p.108, BookCaps Study Guides

• It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.

  Ayn Rand

  Peace, Truth, Freedom

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.224, Penguin

• The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, History, Mind

  Ayn Rand (1971). “The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution”

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