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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
Objectivism
Way
Destroyer
Men
Destroyers
Acted
Species

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The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.
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I am opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute, laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy.
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Live a life as a monument to your soul.
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If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
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To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
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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.
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There were things in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will remain.
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To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.
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People are not embracing collectivism because they have accepted bad economics. They are accepting bad economics because they have embraced collectivism.
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
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I feel that others live up to me, if they want me.
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They talked about nothing in particular, sentences that had meaning only in the sound of the voices, in warm gaiety, in the ease of complete relaxation.
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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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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.
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The causes of illusions are not pretty to discover. They're either vicious or tragic.
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There's only one passion in most artists more violent than their desire for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such admiration as they do receive.
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When one turns from reason to faith, when one rejects the absolutism of reality, one undercuts the absolutism of one's consciousness - and one's mind becomes an organ one cannot trust any longer. It becomes what the mystics claim it to be: a tool of distortion.
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It is a sin to write this.
Ayn Rand
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Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
Ayn Rand
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You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.
Ayn Rand