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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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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
Imbeciles
First
Forehead
Always
Foreheads
Men
Smiles
Noticed
Imbecile
Touch
Frown
Thought
Fountainhead
Firsts

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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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.
Ayn Rand
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She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
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Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
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I made my fortune by being able to spot a certain kind of man.
Ayn Rand
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A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack
Ayn Rand
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Any work is creative work if done by a thinking mind.
Ayn Rand
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It's not about who's going to let me it's about who's going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
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Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect? Yes. My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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If a drought strikes them, animals perish--man builds irrigation canals if a flood strikes them, animals perish--man builds dams if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish--man writes the Constitution of the United States.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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A good quotation must be a complete entity. It must be like a headline - sharp, clear, whole.
Ayn Rand
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Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state ' and nothing else
Ayn Rand
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There were things in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will remain.
Ayn Rand
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Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner!
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
Ayn Rand
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He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it or dismiss it.
Ayn Rand
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It is not as late as you think. It is merely early - in the age of the rebirth of individualism.
Ayn Rand