OTHER PEOPLE'S PRAISE FOR
AYN RAND



I thought I'd tell you that there are other people who appreciate Ayn Rand besides myself. It is true that I could have made a page dedicated to other people praising me, but I'm much too conceited to desire anything of that nature; I don't need anyone praising me. The majority of quotes on this page were taken from The Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden. (Doubleday: New York, New York. 1986. 442 pages.) (This is a great book, by the way.) So, without further ado, here are some positive comments people other than myself have made about Ayn Rand.



Atlas Shrugged was voted "Best Novel of the Twentieth Century" by internet users
-- Voters for the 1998 New American Library Online Poll

"At the time I had met Ayn Rand in my mid-twenties, I had already developed a strong admiration for the efficiency of free-market capitalist economics. She demonstrated to me, however, that not only was laissez-faire capitalism an efficient and productive system, but was also the only system consistent with political freedom. By confronting issues that I had never previously encountered, a whole new view of society was opened to me. Ayn Rand was, therefore, instrumental in significantly broadening the scope of my thinking and was clearly a major contributor to my intellectual development, for which I remain profoundly grateful to this day."
-- Alan Greenspan, now the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, statement made in 1986.
(Source: Branden, Barbara. The Passion of Ayn Rand. Doubleday: New York, New York. 1986. p. 410.)

The issuing of the 1999 Ayn Rand U.S. Postage Stamp.
-- U.S. Postal Service
(Source: Mililani Post Office. I saw them for myself, and I bought them.)

The documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, made under the approval of Ayn Rand's estate and legal heir, was nominated for the 1997 "Best Feature-Length Documentary" Oscar.
-- The Motion Picture Academy

The Ayn Rand quote, "Throughout the centuries, there were men to took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but there own vision" is posted on the walls for all to see.
--The Great American Experience exhibit, The Walt Disney Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida, still up in 1999
(I saw this with my own eyes.)

"I read The Fountainhead in college and liked it . . .By coincidence, I am now reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time and I am thrilled and astonished that this woman could know so much so many years before everyone else did and express it so beautifully. And express some of the theories I feel in my stomach, as I go out to do battle."
--John Stossel, Journalist, Consumer reporter, ABC-TV News Correspondent, Correspondent for ABC-TV's 20/20, Winner of 19 Emmy Awards
(Source: Full Context magazine's John Stossel Page)

"Without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist."
--David Nolan, founder of the Libertarian Party
(Branden, 1986. 414.)

"I've read every word of The Fountainhead. Your [Ayn Rand's] thesis is the great one. Especially at this time . . . Your grasp of architecture ins and outs of a degenerate profession astonishes me . . . Your novel is Novel. Unusual material in unusual hands and, I hope, to an unusual end."
Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, often called "the father of Modern Architecture,"
in a letter to Ayn Rand, (Branden, 1986)

"She [Ayn Rand] voiced provocative opinions, she was anti-establishment and utterly unexpected, with a close kind or reasoning and a clarity that one had to admire; it was a remarkable interview. And the calls and letters that poured in about it shook the rafters. They [the studio audience] fell in love with her! . . . She had such sparkling eyes and an extraordinary texture to her accent; and when she talked to you, she really talked to you, she cared about talking to you. She was fascinating."
--Mike Wallace, veteran Journalist and talkshow host, statement made in 1986 (Branden, 1986. p. 298.)

"God bless you[, Ayn Rand]"
--Tom Snyder, original host of CBS's The Late Late Show, , statement made to Ayn Rand in a 1979 interview (Branden, 1986. p. 392.)

"The book [Atlas Shrugged] really turned me around, because, at the time [1972], I was going through a bad period in Tennis and thinking about quitting. People were constantly calling me and making me feel rotten if I didn't play in their tournament or help them out. I realized then that people were beginning to use my strength as a weakness--they were using me as a pawn to help their own ends, and if I wasn't careful, I'd end up losing myself. So, like Dagny Taggart [the heroine of the story], I had to learn how to be selfish, although selfish has the wrong connotation. As I see it, being selfish is really doing your own thing. Now I know that if I can make myself happy, I can make other people happy--and if that's being selfish, so be it. That's what I am."
--Billie Jean King, tennis champion, the only woman to beat a man in a professional tournament, openly lesbian
(Playboy, 1972. Quoted by Branden, 1986. p. 412.)

"Intellectually, I learned more from Ayn Rand than I can possibly summarize. . . . She was a genius. She had provocative and innovative ideas in virtually every sphere of philosophy, from epistemology to aesthetics. I think the creativity of her countless insights will go on being discovered and appreciated for a very long time."
-- Dr. Nathaniel Branden, psychologist, pioneer in the self-esteem movement
, (He is very upset by how self-esteem is being mistaught in elementary schools across the nation.) (Branden, 1986. p. 408.)

"[In the sixties,] [b]y the time my Peace Corp Tour ended [which is when I finished reading Atlas Shrugged], I had undergone the loneliest, most inspiring, and heartrending pscyho-intellectual transformation, and all my plans upon returning to the United States had changed." She now has her students read The Fountainhead.
--Ann Wortham, black sociologist, Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University, continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association, in the past was a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
(Sources: Branden, 1986. p. 407. Full Context's Ann Wortham Page).

"My own move toward independence and liberation has been inspired by a popular novel. The pre-Friedan and pre-Millet feminism had been nurtured by the reading of Atlas Shrugged. . . . The neurotic, manipulated, or exploited female continues to be the mainstay of American fiction . . . [but Rand's] novel has a good example of a woman who is active, assertive, successful, and still retains the love and sexual admiration of three heroic men."
--Mimi Gladstein, literature professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, free-market feminist
(as opposed to a "liberal" feminist) (Gladstein, Mimi. "Ayn Rand and Feminism: An Unlikely Alliance." Journal of College English Quoted by Branden, 1986. p. 411.)

"I have found her two major novels exciting, powerful, illuminating and thought provoking . . . combined with a 'sense of life' that is worthy of man . . . Miss Rand is an interesting thinker, worthy of attention."
--Robert Nozick, professor of philosophy at Harvard, libertarian
(Branden, 1986. p. 418.)

Makes sure that all of his exployees have read Atlas Shrugged.
--Victor Niederhoffer, multimillionaire, founder and CEO of Niederhoffer Investments Inc., Chairman of Niederhoffer Managment, Harvard Graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago

(Source: Full Context's Victor Niederhoffer Page.)

Named his holding company "Rearden Steel," in homage to the fictitious company in Atlas Shrugged.
--Steve Perlman, multimillionaire, formerly an executive at Microsoft
(Source: Mardesich, Jodi. Fortune Magazine Online. June 16, 1999.)

"[This album is] [d]edicated to the genius of Ayn Rand."
--Neil Peart, drumer and lyricist of the Canadian rock group Rush, the dedication appeared on the album 2112, released in the '80's (Also, one of the songs is titled Anthem, after the novelette by Rand.)
(Sources: Branden, 1986. 419.; The Advocates for Self-Government's Neil Peart Page)

"Ayn was a genius, the most brilliant person I have ever known. I really loved her--and I still do. . . . Although I've moved in different philosophical directions, I'm still an individualist; I learned individualism from her, and that remains."
--Thadeus Ashby, Christian Republican
(Branden, 1986. p. 198.)

"Ayn Rand provided a moral defense [of capitalism] that had an electrifying effect on people who had never heard capitalism defended in other than technological terms. She made it clear that a free society is a productive society, but what matters is individual freedom."
--Robert Hessen, historian, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford
(Branden, 1986. p. 412.)

"Before I read The Fountainhead, I was filled with pessimism. By the time I finished reading Atlas Shrugged, all of that pessimism was obliterated. From these books, I've learned that there's no point in just focusing on the negative, because life has so many possibilities, and, as works as great as these novels prove that heroism still exists in the world."
--Stuart K. Hayashi, the maintainer of this page
(Okay, so I couldn't resist adding a comment of my own.)

More great stuff coming to this particular page some day.

Check out my reviews of the following Ayn Rand Books

Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead