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Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
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
Power
Libertarian
Ever
Stupidity
Good
Neither
Stupid
Peace
Motives
Force
Antiwar
Desire
Lust
War
Motive
More quotes by Ayn Rand
To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.
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It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious
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Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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This was the great clarity of being beyond emotion, after the reward of having felt everything one could feel.
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Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
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Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices made by others.
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A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
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If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.
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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 man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
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Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.
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That which exists possesses identity he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.
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There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men.
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Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.
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but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
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Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
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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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Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking of existence.
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