Quote

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology.

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
Come
Accepted
Slogans
Country
Degrees
Declared
Constant
Official
Pressure
Absurdity
Tomorrow
Retreat
Side
Officials
Uncontested
Sides
Ideology
Dint
Today
Suddenly
Absurdities

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If you want to save capitalism there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that has ever won in any moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full, moral certainty.
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Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.
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A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
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It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth.
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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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It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns, and derives from love.
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There can be no compromise on moral principles.
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Allies never trust each other, but that doesn't spoil their effectiveness.
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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
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The fact that a man has no claim on others ... does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.
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The sky is like a black sieve pierced by silver drops that tremble, ready to burst through.
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The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
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Contrary to the ecologists, nature does not stand still and does not maintain the kind of equilibrium that guarantees the survival of any particular species - least of all the survival of her greatest and most fragile product: man.
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Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
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Let us destroy, but don't let us pretend that we are commiting an act of virtue.
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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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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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Show me your achievement, and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
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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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Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.
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