# Quote — Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness

> The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence—to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

- Author: [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md)
- Book: [The Virtue of Selfishness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand#The_Virtue_of_Selfishness_(1964)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/the-only-proper

## More from this book

> When a man declares: "There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!"

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/when-a-man.md)

> Observe, in politics, that the term extremism has become a synonym of "evil," regardless of the content of the issue (the evil is not what you are extreme about, but that you are "extreme"—i.e., consistent).

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/observe-in-politics.md)

> The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of one man necessitates the injury of another.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-virtue-of-selfishness/the-moral-cannibalism.md)