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

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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Ferris: Are you going to be as impractical as that? Rearden: The evaluation of an action as practical, Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice. Ferris: Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else? Rearden: That is what I am doing right now.
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A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
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No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.
Ayn Rand
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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.'
Ayn Rand
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Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper
Ayn Rand
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Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.
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I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.
Ayn Rand
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She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.
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You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated
Ayn Rand
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Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work, pride is the result.
Ayn Rand
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Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?
Ayn Rand
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An idea is a light turned on in a man's soul. Comic-strip artists are in the habit of representing it by means of a light bulb flashing on, above the head of a character who has suddenly grasped an idea. In simple, primitive terms, this is an appropriate symbol.
Ayn Rand
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If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
Ayn Rand
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He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.
Ayn Rand
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You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
Ayn Rand
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Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: I will it!
Ayn Rand
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Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.
Ayn Rand
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Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence.
Ayn Rand