 <p>You use getattr:</p> <pre><code>getattr(object, var) </code></pre> <p>Anyways, just an additional comment that you are not referencing <em>object</em> variables, you are referencing <em>instance</em> variables. If you want an instance variable, you need to do something like this:</p> <pre><code># Note: object is reserved, it's the built-in base class for new-style classes class MyObject: def __init__(self): self.name = 'name' myobj = MyObject() getattr(myobj, 'name') </code></pre> <p>But getattr doesn't care - classes or instances, they are both Python objects, it works the same way.</p>