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An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

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
Novelists
Produced
Honesty
Produce
Honest
Men
Consume
Consuming

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Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
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Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
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The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
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It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money.
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Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
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She fell asleep, lying there, her hand clasping his. Her last awareness, before she surrendered the responsibility of consciousness, was the sense of an enormous void, the void of a city and of a continent, where she would never be able to find the man whom she had no right to seek.
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In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.
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A 'whim' is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
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It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.
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When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him, by force.
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The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
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There is only one institution that can arrogate to itself the power legally to trade by means of rubber checks: the government. And it is the only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities (and paper money) are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production.
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The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
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Action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical.
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I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all - that I was a man who made money
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The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.
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She stood at the window, her arms spread wide, holding on to each side of the frame, it was as if she held a piece of the city.
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...if men are to be ruled, then the enemy is reason.
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I refuse to apologize for my ability -- I refuse to apologize for my success -- I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it.
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