Quote

If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.

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
Slave
Society
Whether
Undertaking
Free
Undertakings
Action
Obtain
Right
Permission
Must
Acts
Granted

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What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word We.
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She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.
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There is only one institution that can arrogate to itself the power legally to trade by means of rubber checks: the government. And it is the only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities (and paper money) are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production.
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Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. Virtue is the act by which one aims and/or keeps it.
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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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There's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.
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Freedom comes from seeing the ignorance of your critics and discovering the emptiness of their virtue.
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I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.
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Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.
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A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.
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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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Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.
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It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.
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It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
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The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral.
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To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?
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