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To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight

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
Mean
Threat
Men
Destruction
Like
Sight
Interpose
Judgment
Negate
Physical
Paralyze
Force
Forcing
Means
Survival
Reality
Perception

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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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Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.
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Action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical.
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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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Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.
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Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
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Whoever, to whatever purpose or extent, initiates the use of force, is a killer acting on the premise of death in a manner wider than murder: the premise of destroying man's capacity to live.
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The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.
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The most depraved type of human being ... (is) the man without a purpose.
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My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
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Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that “everybody is white” or “everybody is black” or “everybody is neither white nor black, but gray,” is not a moral judgment, but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.
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If you want to save capitalism there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that has ever won in any moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full, moral certainty.
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
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Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute.
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Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.
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Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.
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If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
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The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.
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The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.
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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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