Quote

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

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
Whole
Economic
Settings
Men
Public
Privacy
Fountainhead
Existence
Setting
Tribe
Law
Laws
Ruled
Society
Toward
Savage
Free
Civilization
Tribes
Process
Progress
Savages
Inspirational
Liberty
Fierce

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All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.
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The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
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A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.
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I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.
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When one turns from reason to faith, when one rejects the absolutism of reality, one undercuts the absolutism of one's consciousness - and one's mind becomes an organ one cannot trust any longer. It becomes what the mystics claim it to be: a tool of distortion.
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The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life by his own work (on any economic level, as high as his ability will carry him) it does not mean that others must provide him with the necessities of life.
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Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.'
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Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion.
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Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.
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I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all - that I was a man who made money
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When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.
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Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal brutality is not idealistic, no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
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There's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
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If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose.
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If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn't you make the most of it?
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In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.
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Aquinas brought an Aristotelian view of reason back into European culture, and lighted the way toward the Renaissance.
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Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
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Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
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