Ayn Rand Quotes

I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can...And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same...I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

There is no greater valor nor no sterner fight. He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is.

Live up to your convictions. You walk in grace or you walk in fear. You can't have it both ways.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause. He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.

The test before us as a people is not whether our commitments match our will and our courage; but whether we have the will and courage to match our commitments.

The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good.

The truth was, Azoth hated Azoth. Azoth was a coward, passive, weak, afraid, disloyal. Azoth had hesitated. Master Blint didn’t know it, but the poisons on the needle had killed Azoth. He was Kylar now, and Kylar would be everything Azoth hadn’t dared to be.

Advance like a hero. Do not be thwarted by anything. How many days will this body last, with its happiness and misery? When you have the human body, then rouse the Atman within and say-I have reached the state of fearlessness!...and then as long as the body endures, speak unto others this message of fearlessness: 'Thou art That', 'Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached'

Sometimes the warrior feels as if he were living two lives at once. 'There is a bridge that links what I do with what I would like to do,' he thinks. Slowly, his dreams take over his everyday life, and then he realises that he is ready for the thing he always wanted. Then all that is needed is a little daring, and his two lives become one.

Optimism is true moral courage.

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.

It is not the repeated mistakes, the long succession of petty betrayals--though, God knows, they would give cause enough for anxiety and self-contempt--but the huge elementary mistake, the betrayal of that within me which is greater than I--in complacent adjustment to alien demands.

If you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow.

For me, exploration is about that journey to the interior, into your own heart. I'm always wondering, how will I act at my moment of truth? Will I rise up and do what's right, even if every fiber of my being is telling me otherwise?

That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.

Knowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent.

She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend - as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.

I may not unnerve myself while I can struggle against evil.

It's still easier to take a blow from outside than it is to be disgusted with myself for not taking a stand. I don't know how people can live and not fight back but apparently millions do. They must hate themselves.

The warrior of light plunges unhesitatingly into the river of passions always flowing through his life.

Courage is not limited to the battlefield or the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody's looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you're misunderstood.

The great virtue of those who seek the spiritual path is courage.