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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.

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
Wind
Brass
Greatest
Treasures
Poor
Blown
Freedom
Coins
Spirit
Winds
Thought
Guard
Treasure
Flung
Fortune
Alms

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My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.
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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.
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Dominique as Gail looks at her ... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.
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As we gain knowledge, we do not become more certain, we become certain of more.
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When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him, by force.
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He, too, stood looking at her for a moment - and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning.
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Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute.
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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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Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!
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I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'
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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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Emotions are not tools of cognition. They tell you nothing about the nature of reality.
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Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
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Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.
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It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth.
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There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
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Place nothing above the verdict of your own mind.
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