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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
Living
History
Power
Way
Objectivism
Men
Destroyer
Destroyers
Acted
Species

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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All work is an act of philosophy.
Ayn Rand
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To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.
Ayn Rand
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Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that “everybody is white” or “everybody is black” or “everybody is neither white nor black, but gray,” is not a moral judgment, but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.
Ayn Rand
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You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.
Ayn Rand
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I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.
Ayn Rand
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As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.
Ayn Rand
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Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state ' and nothing else
Ayn Rand
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If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and ... if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own I would refuse... I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist.
Ayn Rand
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If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.
Ayn Rand
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I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
Ayn Rand
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You were not born to be a second-hander. Howard Roark to Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
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Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.
Ayn Rand
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Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.
Ayn Rand
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A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
Ayn Rand
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand
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The conservatives want to rule man's consciousness the liberals, his body.
Ayn Rand
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It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.
Ayn Rand
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Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.
Ayn Rand
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?
Ayn Rand
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Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you? He answered, Not yet. The reason my family has lasted for such a long time is that none of us has ever been permitted to think he is born a d'Anconia. We are expected to become one.
Ayn Rand