Ayn Rand Quotes

Advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you.

He who dares not reason, is a slave.

If you want to be told what to think, well, I'm not in that business.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

In the word of no master am I bound to believe.

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.

If we don't empower ourselves with knowledge, then we're gonna be led down a garden path.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

I don't substitute anybody else's judgment for my own.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

In Ministry, we've only had one message: Think for yourself.

Only the educated are free.

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.

Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.

An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.

Think for yourself and question authority.

He who thinks and thinks for himself, will always have a claim to thanks; it is no matter whether it be right or wrong, so as it be explicit. If it is right, it will serve as a guide to direct; if wrong, as a beacon to warn.

You must avoid letting anyone usurp your freedom of thought in any way, whether on religious or other grounds. People must use their minds and think and there are situations where the use of the intellect is necessary so that excessive fantasy or fancy can be held in check.

Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding.

No man's mind can possibly lie wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled to do so.

If you're just a follower, you never know why you are doing something. Then you can't know if something is good or not. How would you know that what you thought is right, if you didn't think it?

Each of you, as an individual, must pick your own goals. Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.

My goal is never to push anyone to do anything other than think.

The Enlightenment ideal, which all universities claim to endorse, is that everyone should think for themselves.