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Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.

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
Giving
Humor
Every
Liberty
Unearned
Men
Economy
Interference
Economic
Expense
Politics
Expenses
Force
Consists
Others
Benefit
Government
Benefits

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A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
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Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.
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Great men can't be ruled.
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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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Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.
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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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This god, this one word: I.
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Most American men are repressors.
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We didn't really have to take everything so seriously, did we?
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The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.
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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.
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To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?
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Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
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Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.
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Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.
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But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.
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A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
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Any group or collective, large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members.
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