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Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
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
Intellectual
Child
Story
Stories
Bankrupt
America
Culturally
Children
Emperor
Declare
Naked
More quotes by Ayn Rand
Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect? Yes. My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
Ayn Rand
Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal brutality is not idealistic, no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to do good by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
Ayn Rand
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.
Ayn Rand
Don't help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don't work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
Ayn Rand
You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated
Ayn Rand
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
Don't consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.
Ayn Rand
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.
Ayn Rand
I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
Ayn Rand
It's not about who's going to let me it's about who's going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive.
Ayn Rand
All depressions are caused by government interference and the cure is always offered to take more of the poison that caused the disaster. Depressions are not the result of a free economy.
Ayn Rand
If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose . . . the fact that they were the people who created the phrase to make money. No other language or nation had ever used these words before. . . . Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.
Ayn Rand
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
There's nothing of any importance in life — except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It's the only measure of human value.
Ayn Rand
Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.
Ayn Rand
The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.
Ayn Rand
Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.
Ayn Rand
Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
Ayn Rand
She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
Ayn Rand