Ayn Rand Revisited

Revisiting a compilation of Ayn Rand quotes, first published
in January, 2007.

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

Thought does not bow to authority.

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men's virtues and from condemning men's vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you - whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.

The precept: Judge not, that ye be not judged ... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.

To fear to face an issue is to believe the worst is true.