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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.

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
Commandments
Forced
Rational
Chosen
Understood
Accepting
Moral
Obeyed
Reason
Accepts

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We the Living is not a novel 'about Soviet Russia.' It is a novel about Man against the State. Its basic theme is the sanctity of human life - using the word 'sanctity' not in a mystical sense, but in the sense of 'supreme value.'
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Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.
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Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end - the means of telling a story.
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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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The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
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My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.
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Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.
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Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
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When you are asked to love everybody indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.
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Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through.
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Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
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As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.
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She stood at the window, her arms spread wide, holding on to each side of the frame, it was as if she held a piece of the city.
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Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
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Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras whenever it fell, so did mankind.
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.
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The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind
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This god, this one word: I.
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They talked about nothing in particular, sentences that had meaning only in the sound of the voices, in warm gaiety, in the ease of complete relaxation.
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