Quote

An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a cause. There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man's reason and his emotions

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
Effects
Dichotomy
Value
Automatic
Cause
Premises
Emotion
Clash
Causes
Emotions
Values
Effect
Reason
Response
Men
Necessary

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise.
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Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
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Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue-and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.
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Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
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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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There are two side to every issue.
Ayn Rand
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The only thing that matters my goal my reward my beginning my end is the work itself. My work done my way. A private personal selfish egotistical motivation. That’s the only way I function. That’s all I am.
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It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.
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The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.
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I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand
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If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
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Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
Ayn Rand
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The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.
Ayn Rand
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Life is a value to be bought and thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.
Ayn Rand
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Love is our response to our highest values.
Ayn Rand
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In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
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Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.
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Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values the bureaucrat's tool is fear.
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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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She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.
Ayn Rand