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Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work, pride is the result.

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
Values
Rational
Reason
Determine
Integrates
Work
Result
Precondition
Men
Pride
Integrating
Life
Value
Hierarchy
Source
Determines
Results
Central
Purpose
Productive

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Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.
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Great men can't be ruled.
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In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both.
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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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It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.
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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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Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires.... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.
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A rational man knows-or makes it a point to discover-the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come.
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I will not die, it's the world that will end. paraphrase of unknown philosopher
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Life is a value to be bought and thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.
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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.
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The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind.
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
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To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
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When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.
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When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.
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Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
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