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Man is a being with free will therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants 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
Free
Evil
Potentially
Mind
Reasoning
Good
Witty
Men
Decide
Therefore
Wants
Choices

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it's his thinking that you want him to suspend.
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Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do.
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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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I will not die, it's the world that will end. paraphrase of unknown philosopher
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Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
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The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.
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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
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I think, therefore I'll think.
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Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.
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Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it.
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An emotion as much tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something.
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Any alleged 'right' of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.
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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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and he said her name to fill the space of five years.
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If you want to feel good, be rational.
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When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter if I am right, he will learn if I am wrong, I will one of us will win, but both will profit.
Ayn Rand
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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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Freedom of association includes the freedom not to associate.
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Andrei, did you like the opera? Not particularly. Andrei, do you see what you're missing? I don't think I do, Kira. It's all rather silly. And useless. Can't you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful? No. But I enjoyed it. The music? No. The way you listened to it.
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Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.
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