Quote

Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

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
Government
Holds
Men
Victim
Threat
Disarmed
Physical
Legally
Dangerous
Potentially
Rights
Monopoly
Force
Victims
Use
Legal

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
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you are never called upon to prove a negative. that's a law of logic.
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every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise.
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We didn't really have to take everything so seriously, did we?
Ayn Rand
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The more you learn, the more you know that you know nothing.
Ayn Rand
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Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner!
Ayn Rand
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Don't consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.
Ayn Rand
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Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational.
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A good quotation must be a complete entity. It must be like a headline - sharp, clear, whole.
Ayn Rand
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The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
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One must differentiate between one's thoughts and one's emotions with full clarity and precision...No discussion, cooperation, agreement, or understanding is possible among men who substitute emotion for proof.
Ayn Rand
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The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.
Ayn Rand
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Her face lay still on the air under his face.
Ayn Rand
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I feel that others live up to me, if they want me.
Ayn Rand
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Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live.
Ayn Rand
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The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.
Ayn Rand
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Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.
Ayn Rand