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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

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
Suffering
Purpose
Happiness
Objectivism
Enjoy
Suffer
Live
Morality
Life
Humor
Teach
Dies

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The government has created a nation of paper criminals. People can be put in jail and lose civil rights and liberties through bureaucratic procedures.The only thing that is keeping you out of jail is government goodwill.
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Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.
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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
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I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
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Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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No man can use his brain to think for another.
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Money is the root of all good.
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Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
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John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.
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There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men.
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A BUSINESSMAN cannot force you to buy his product if he makes a mistake, He suffers the consequences if he fails, he takes the loss. A bureaucrat, forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not... If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences If he fails, He passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.
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If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with
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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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Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
Ayn Rand
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I will not die, it's the world that will end. paraphrase of unknown philosopher
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Don't rely on our knowledge of what's best for your future. We do know, but it can't be best until you know it.
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One can study what exists and how consciousness functions but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
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Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.
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Ah, there's nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization - this tea ritual and the detective novel.
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