Ayn Rand

“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.”

“Wealth is the product of a man's ability to think.”

“Throughout the centuries there have been men who took the first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.”

“Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

“She looked at the crowd and she felt, simultaneously, astonishment that they should stare at her, when this event was so personally her own that no communication about it was possible, and a sense of fitness that they should be here, that they should want to see it, because the sight of an achievement was the greatest gift a human being could offer to others.”

“Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future. We do know, but it can't be best until you know it.”

“No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man's mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.”

“You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you and when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well.”