Ayn Rand Moral Quotations

If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

It is fairly easy to grasp abstract moral principles; it can be very difficult to apply them to a given situation, particularly when it involves the moral character of another person..

All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.

The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal ...

One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term 'duty.

Errors of knowledge are not breaches of morality; no proper moral code can demand infallibility or omniscience.

One must never fail to pronounce moral judgment.

There can be no compromise on moral principles.

The cult of moral grayness is a revolt against moral values.

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.