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

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A free mind and a free market are corollaries.
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In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate.
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Every honest man lives for himself. Every man worth calling a man lives for himself. The one who doesn't - doesn't live at all.
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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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Words are a lens to focus one's mind.
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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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Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
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Whenever anyone accuses some person of being 'unfeeling,' he means that that person is just. He means that that person has no causeless emotions and will not grant him a feeling which he does not deserve. He means that 'to feel' is to go against reason, against moral values, against reality.
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It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious
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If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose.
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You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value.
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The only man never to be redeemed is the man without passion.
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To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone
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No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.
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Selfishness does not mean only to do things for one's self. One may do things, affecting others, for his own pleasure and benefit. This is not immoral, but the highest of morality.
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Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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I think, therefore I'll think.
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