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To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.

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
Irrational
Extent
Rational
Actions
Death
Action
Premise
Men
Premises
Life
Directing

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It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own.
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An irresponsible person is a person who makes vague promises, then breaks his word, blames it on circumstances and expects other people to forgive it.
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Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
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I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
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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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My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.
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Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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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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She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
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The causes of illusions are not pretty to discover. They're either vicious or tragic.
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Happiness is not something you have in your hands it's something you carry in your heart. Happiness is one thing that multiplies by division. Happiness is that peculiar sensation you acquire when you are too busy to be miserable. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
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The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
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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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If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.
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Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.
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What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?
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John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.
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and he said her name to fill the space of five years.
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