Ayn Rand Quotes on People (9 Quotes)

People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.

She watched the prairies the rivers, the towns slipping past at an untouchable distance below - and she noted that the sense of detachment one feels when looking at the earth from a plane was the same sense she felt when looking at people: only her distance from people seemed longer. - Dagny Taggart

Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?

People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they're reflecting too ... Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose.

When we gaze at the magnificence of an ancient monument and ascribe its achievement to one man, we are guilty of spiritual embezzlement. We forget the army of craftsmen, unknown and unsung, who preceded him in the darkness of the ages, who toiled humbly - all heroism is humble - each contributing his small share to the common treasure of his time. A great building is not the private invention of some genius or other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people.

Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I'm not the Gail Wynand you'd heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you'd want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that's the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you'd want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn't be easy for you.

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk.

And what is the state but a servant and a convenience for a large number of people, just like the electric light and the plumbing system And wouldn't it be preposterous to claim that men must exist for their plumbing, not the plumbing for the men.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose ... the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before.... Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.