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A man who seeks escape from the responsibility of supporting his life by his own thought and effort, and wishes to survive by conquering, ruling and exploiting others, is NOT an Individualist.

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
Survive
Conquering
Effort
Exploiting
Responsibility
Supporting
Wish
Ruling
Others
Seeks
Thought
Wishes
Men
Conquer
Life
Escape
Individualist

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
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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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An irresponsible person is a person who makes vague promises, then breaks his word, blames it on circumstances and expects other people to forgive it.
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An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature.
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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
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Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?
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Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
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Don't think of them now. Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them. You're here. It's our time and our life, not theirs. Don't struggle not to be happy. You are. - John Gault
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When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
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There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
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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.
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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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The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind.
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Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing.
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?
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And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die should we all perish in battle. 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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Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.
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When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.
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I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!
Ayn Rand