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By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.

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
Author
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Present
Creative
Expresses
Values
Chooses
Writing
Metaphysical
Presents

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A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.
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Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires - if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical?
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A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!
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The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.
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If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
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Words are a lens to focus one's mind.
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If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
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Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind.
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It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth.
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In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.
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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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There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.
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The genius must have his freedom and his independence.
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Dominique as Gail looks at her ... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.
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An idea is a light turned on in a man's soul. Comic-strip artists are in the habit of representing it by means of a light bulb flashing on, above the head of a character who has suddenly grasped an idea. In simple, primitive terms, this is an appropriate symbol.
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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
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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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The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert.
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Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.
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Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
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