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

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Remember that rights are moral principles which define and protect a man's freedom of action, but impose no obligations on other men.
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And that night we knew that to hold the body of women in our arms in neither ugly nor shameful, but the one ecstasy granted to the race of men.
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Andrei, did you like the opera? Not particularly. Andrei, do you see what you're missing? I don't think I do, Kira. It's all rather silly. And useless. Can't you enjoy things that are useless, merely because they are beautiful? No. But I enjoyed it. The music? No. The way you listened to it.
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?
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It is not advisable to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.
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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.
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There are no evil thoughts except one the refusal to think.
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Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious
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but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
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He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved.
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The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time.
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The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity.
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Living in a society, instead of on a desert island, does not relieve a man of the responsibility of supporting his own life.
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Words are a lens to focus one's mind.
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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
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We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
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There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
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Man is a being with free will therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be.
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The genius must have his freedom and his independence.
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.
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