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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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Human
Independence
Humans
Dignity
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Value
Fountainhead
Men
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Makes
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The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
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You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
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Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal.
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Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.
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Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
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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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What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.
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To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.
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And man will go on. Man, not men.
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All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shapes, but always in cost.
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Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
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I will not die, it's the world that will end. paraphrase of unknown philosopher
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In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?
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Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
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Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: I will it!
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If workers struggle for higher wages, this is hailed as social gains, if businessmen struggle for higher profits, this is damned as selfish greed.
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Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
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