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What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.

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
Open
Eagerly
Able
Objectivity
Ideas
Examine
Mind
Requires
Active
Willing
Philosophy
Study

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Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence.
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Her face lay still on the air under his face.
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Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
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All work is an act of philosophy.
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One can study what exists and how consciousness functions but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradict ory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of nonexistence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness .)
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That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.
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Never ask people about your work.
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The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.
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Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another's values.
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If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.
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She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.
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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.
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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.
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Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.
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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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All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shapes, but always in cost.
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
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Science was born as a result and consequence of philosophy it cannot survive without a philosophical base. If philosophy perishes, science will be next to go.
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Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.
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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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