Quote

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.

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
Make
Survive
Good
Destroy
Rest
Moral
Ability
Wish
Penalized
Best
Punished
Nothing
Destroying

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It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism.
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Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions, I'm challenging the moral code of altruism. The precept that man's moral duty is to live for others. That man must sacrifice himself to others. Which is the present day morality.
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What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.
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It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own.
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This god, this one word: I.
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Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality-not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.
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Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.
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If you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty.
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One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
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If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
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When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it's his thinking that you want him to suspend.
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There are no evil thoughts except one the refusal to think.
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In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.
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I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference
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Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge.
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The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert.
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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