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Ayn Rand (2 February1905 – 6 March1982) was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her bestselling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system called Objectivism.

See also

Atlas Shrugged (1957)

The Fountainhead (1943)

Quotes

1930s

• I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life.

We The Living (1936)

• Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know. What do you mean? Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do—then, I know they don't believe in life. Why? Because, you see, God—whatever anyone chooses to call God—is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.

• There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it—it isn't right. If it's right and you don't want to do it—you don't know what right is and you're not a man.

• There is only one thing that matters and that we'll remember. The rest doesn't matter. I don't care what life is to be nor what it does to us. But it won't break us. Neither you nor me. That's our only weapon. That's the only banner we can hold against all those others around us. That's all we have to know about the future.

• The

Ayn Rand , February 2, 1905 January 20; March 6 1982), born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, was best known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Her philosophy and her fiction both emphasize, above all, the concepts of individualism, rational egoism ("rational self-interest"), and capitalism, which she believed should be implemented fully via Laissez-fairecapitalism. Her politics has been described as minarchism and libertarianism, though she never used the first term and detested the second.

Her novels were based upon the projection of the Randian hero, a man whose ability and independence causes conflict with the masses, but who perseveres nevertheless to achieve his values. Rand viewed this hero as the ideal, and the express goal of her fiction was to showcase such heroes.

She believed:

• That man must choose his values and actions by reason;
• That the individual has a right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and
• That no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force, or impose ideas on others by physical force.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Rand was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and was the eldest of three daughters of a Jewish family. Her parents were agnostic and largely non-observant. From an early age, she displayed a strong interest in literature and films. She started writing screenplays and novels from the age of seven. Her mother taught her Fren

Owner: Ayn Rand Institute  |  Credit: Luis A. de Jesús

Ayn Rand (1905–1982), born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, was a Russian-American novelist, screenwriter and playwright. She is the author of vast doorstop-sized tomes like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, among other thick, boring books espousing libertarian themes and ideology. She empowered herself by trying to set the Women's movement back 50 years.

Rand claimed to be a philosopher, though she preferred the title "Objectivist." Objectivism is a political movement based on Rand's teachings. In actual fact, her simplistic versions of philosophy were misunderstandings of Aristotelianmetaphysical notions formulated thousands of years ago. Whether that makes it a philosophy ("Look, it's got an '-ism' at the end!") or just an excuse for being greedy, ignorant, and selfish is, ironically, subjective.

If it hadn't appealed to so many 1950s and 1960s sci-fi fans, maybe her pernicious views wouldn't have ended up getting filtered to "ethically-challenged" people in tech who want to delete all our jobs