- Lived:
- 1905–1982 · St. Petersburg, Russia → New York, USA
- Tradition:
- Objectivism — her own one-woman system: rational egoism, laissez-faire capitalism, the heroic individual
- The Big Idea:
- Reality is what it is regardless of anyone's wishes; reason is your only means of knowing it; your own life is your highest value; and the only moral society is one where free minds trade value for value, with force banished from human affairs.
- In their words:
- "Existence exists."
- If you remember one thing:
- She is the best-selling philosopher in this book and the least taught — and both facts are trying to tell you something.