Quote

I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.

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
Honor
Hide
Innovators
Something
Outside
Stands
Apologize
Mankind
Offer
Apologizing
Alone
Carry
Stream
Term
Valuable
Status
Innovator
Offers
Mainstream
Swamp
Anyone
Forward
Streams
Swamps
Rather
Intellectual
Distinction
Stagnant
Ideas

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A story is an end in itself. It is not written to teach, sell, explain or destroy anything. It is not written even to entertain. It is written as a man is born - an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity - an end in itself, not a means to an end.
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The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through.
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But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.
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The genius must have his freedom and his independence.
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That which exists possesses identity he could keep it out of existence by refusing to identify it.
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Pleasure is nought but virtue's gayer name-- I wrong her still, I rate her worth too low: Virtue the root, and pleasure is the flow'r.
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A rational process is a moral process.
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I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.
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Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably the man who respects it has earned it.
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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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My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
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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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Serenity comes from the ability to say “Yes” to existence. Courage comes from the ability to say “No” to the wrong choices made by others.
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Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality
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If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.
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If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite.
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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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Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: I will it!
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A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
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Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.
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