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You don't know how hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself.

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
Tried
Standing
Left
Hard

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Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.'
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If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with
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And man will go on. Man, not men.
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Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing.
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Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?
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She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness.
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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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To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.
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Nobody has ever given a reason why men should be their brother's keepers.
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.
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Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
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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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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.
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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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But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.
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The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning mind.
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Collectivism requires self-sacrifice, the subordination of one's interests to those of others.
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Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.
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It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.
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My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.
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