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Reality confronts man with a great many musts, but all of them are conditional the formula of realistic necessity is You must, if and the if stands for man's choice

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
Stands
Choice
Choices
Confronts
Reality
Conditional
Many
Formula
Must
Formulas
Great
Realistic
Men
Necessity

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You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
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America's founding Ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more - and nothing less.
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Hank, this is great. Yes. He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood.
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She's a writer. The kind of writer who wouldn't be published outside. She believes that when one deals with words, one deals with the mind.
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Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
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Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.
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Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.
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To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
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Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
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A man who seeks escape from the responsibility of supporting his life by his own thought and effort, and wishes to survive by conquering, ruling and exploiting others, is NOT an Individualist.
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It is not as late as you think. It is merely early - in the age of the rebirth of individualism.
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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
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She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
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He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it or dismiss it.
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She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
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The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshipin g mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action.
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