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

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.
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Statism needs war a free country does not. Statism survives by looting a free country survives by producing.
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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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Unjust laws have to be fought ideologically they cannot be fought or corrected by means of mere disobedience and futile martyrdom.
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The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
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Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
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The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.
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We are one...alone...and only...and we love you who are one...alone...and only. We looked into each other's eyes and we knew the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly. And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find.
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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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Namely, if I am challenging the base of all these institutions, I'm challenging the moral code of altruism. The precept that man's moral duty is to live for others. That man must sacrifice himself to others. Which is the present day morality.
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You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
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Man's character is the product of his premises.
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One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
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The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
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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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You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live
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I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry
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Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime.
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The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren
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What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.
Ayn Rand