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In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.

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
Profit
Food
Liberty
Economic
Winning
Evil
Poison
Death
Compromise
Good
Economics

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Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential.
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Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.
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If a man wants love he should correct his weaknesses, or his flaws, and he may deserve it. But he cannot expect the unearned, either in love or in money either in matter or in spirit.
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This was the great clarity of being beyond emotion, after the reward of having felt everything one could feel.
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I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.
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But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.
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...if men are to be ruled, then the enemy is reason.
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To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.
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[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.
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I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.
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Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.
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The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
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When you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil.
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Psychologically, the choice to think or not is the choice to focus or not. Existentially, the choice to focus or not is the choice to be conscious or not. Metaphysically, the choice to be conscious or not is the choice of life or death.
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Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.
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You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live
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An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
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It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.
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Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
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