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The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: February 2
Died: 1982
Died: March 6
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
St. Petersburg
Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
Enough
Law
Libertarian
Many
Makes
Criminals
Things
Power
Laws
Men
Government
Aren
Live
Crime
Declares
Wells
Becomes
Crack
Without
Impossible
Cracks
Well
Wisdom
Breaking

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No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.
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She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
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No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave .
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Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
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Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.
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Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
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The fortune my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
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When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...th at in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-you may know that your society is doomed.
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When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him, by force.
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You were not born to be a second-hander. Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead
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A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
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If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
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Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you dont
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?
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A rational man is guided by his thinking - by a process of Reason - not by his feelings and desires.
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The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
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Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably the man who respects it has earned it.
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It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices.
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Love is our response to our highest values.
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The most depraved type of human being ... (is) the man without a purpose.
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