It’s surprising how people think they’ve discovered something astonishing when they can point out flaws in Ayn Rand as a person. Clearly, her observations on the dangers of collectivism and the virtues of individualism mean more as a writer than any defects in her personal life.
Many people from all political persuasions find it difficult to separate the messenger from the message.
Ponder the merit of the message before pondering the merit of the messenger.
"When the law no longer protects you from the corrupt, but protects the corrupt from you - you know your nation is doomed."
“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”
“Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen.”
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
It's even more amazing how people think one's personal flaws have no correlation to one's weltanschauung. Certainly, Rand made a great case against the intrusive, overearing power of the state, but IMHO, she vastly undermined her own case with her advocacy of abortion (among other things). Rand would be the first to object to the state making whimsical, arbitrary decisions about the life and death of an individual, but had no problem with the state delegating that power to pregnant women.