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Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
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
History
Power
Way
Objectivism
Men
Destroyer
Destroyers
Acted
Species
Living
More quotes by Ayn Rand
Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.
Ayn Rand
When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.
Ayn Rand
Any work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
Ayn Rand
And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO
Ayn Rand
If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn't you make the most of it?
Ayn Rand
Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a disease.
Ayn Rand
The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind.
Ayn Rand
Morally, the promise of an impossible “right” to economic security is an infamous attempt to abrogate the concept of rights. It can and does mean only one thing: a promise to enslave the men who produce, for the benefit of those who don’t.
Ayn Rand
In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition.
Ayn Rand
Men have died in torture chambers, on the stake, in concentration camps, in front of firing squads, rather than renounce their convictions. The appeaser renounces his under the pressure of a frown on a vacant face.
Ayn Rand
She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
Ayn Rand
I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.
Ayn Rand
but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
Ayn Rand
Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom a free mind and a free market are corollaries.
Ayn Rand
Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Ayn Rand
