Quote

Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.

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
First
Probably
Stakes
Years
Fire
Brothers
Make
Face
Discovered
Men
Faces
Thousands
Left
Gift
Burnt
Light
Darkness
Lifted
Earth
Brother
Conceived
Firsts
Taught
Stake

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Each man must live as an end in himself and follow his own rational self-interest.
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A reader has to be concerned only with the end result unless he chooses to analyze it, he does not have to know by what means that result was achieved-but it is my job to know.
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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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America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.
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Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
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Married people dont look like they have bedrooms on their minds when they look at each other. In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both...Not both.
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The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way.
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in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.
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One must differentiate between one's thoughts and one's emotions with full clarity and precision...No discussion, cooperation, agreement, or understanding is possible among men who substitute emotion for proof.
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The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.
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A rational man is guided by his thinking - by a process of Reason - not by his feelings and desires.
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All the evils, abuses, and iniquities, popularly ascribed to businessmen and to capitalism, were not caused by an unregulated economy or by a free market, but by government intervention into the economy.
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Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
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You know, I think that only if one feels immensely important can one feel truly light.
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
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As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.
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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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In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary.
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
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Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.
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