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What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?

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
Accept
Comfortable
Beyond
Accepting
Makes
Kinder
Best
Nobility
Believe
Endurance
People
Burden

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Sacrifice is the surrender of that which you value in favor of which you dont
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The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.
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I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.
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One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name.
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Most American men are repressors.
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
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The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
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In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.
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Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
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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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Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through.
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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.
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
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It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices.
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