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The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.

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
Addiction
Desire
Inspirational
Anything

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The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.
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Self-esteem is reliance on ones power to think.
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The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
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To demand 'sense' is the hallmark of nonsense. Nature does not make sense. Nothing makes sense.
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That which exists possesses identity he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.
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There were things in my past which I have not liked. But all the things of which I was proud will remain.
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Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.
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you are never called upon to prove a negative. that's a law of logic.
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I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.
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A rational process is a moral process.
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
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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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The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind.
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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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You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live
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The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
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What do I think of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: I don't think of him. And the more I see, the less I think.
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The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave.
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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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One can study what exists and how consciousness functions but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
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