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The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.

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
States
Totalitarian
Matter
Welfare
Time
Economics
Difference
Differences
Liberty
Economic
State

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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You're not sorry. You could've been here if you made the effort. But when did you ever make an effort for anybody but yourself? You're not interested in any of us or in anything we do. You think if you pay the bills, that's enough, don't you? Money! That's all you know. And all you give us is money. Have you even given us any time?
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By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.
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The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through.
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Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims.
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You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated
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You love only those who deserve it.
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One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
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Man cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.
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The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
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Emotions are not tools of cognition. They tell you nothing about the nature of reality.
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What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.
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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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To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone
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The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence - to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
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And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.
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The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.
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Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
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The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life by his own work (on any economic level, as high as his ability will carry him) it does not mean that others must provide him with the necessities of life.
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A good quotation must be a complete entity. It must be like a headline - sharp, clear, whole.
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My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.
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