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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.

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
Toward
Civilization
Progress
Politics
Society
Fountainhead
Political
Savagery
Savages
Privacy

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.
Ayn Rand
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The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
Ayn Rand
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Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.
Ayn Rand
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One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.
Ayn Rand
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When you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil.
Ayn Rand
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But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.
Ayn Rand
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In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.
Ayn Rand
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The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning mind.
Ayn Rand
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My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
Ayn Rand
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand
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What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word We.
Ayn Rand
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The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through.
Ayn Rand
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Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.
Ayn Rand
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All public projects are mausoleums, not always in shapes, but always in cost.
Ayn Rand
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Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.
Ayn Rand
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Ferris: Are you going to be as impractical as that? Rearden: The evaluation of an action as practical, Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice. Ferris: Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else? Rearden: That is what I am doing right now.
Ayn Rand