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Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.

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
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Makes
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Others
Hasn
Human
Independence
Humans
Dignity
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Men
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Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart
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All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shapes, but always in cost.
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My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.
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I feel that others live up to me, if they want me.
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The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO.
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Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.
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Money is the root of all good.
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Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
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whose steps were a restless substitute for flight.
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There's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.
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Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you dont
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The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”-not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form-by giving presents to one's friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
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Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.
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in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.
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I take no pride in hopeless longing I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it.
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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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Political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom a free mind and a free market are corollaries.
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Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.
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To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
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I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
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