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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.

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
High
Entrepreneur
Fortunes
Free
Price
Entrepreneurs
Science
Profit
Profits
Work
Fortune
Reject
Make
Function
Chose
Think
Asked
Rejects
Thinking
Choose
Earn
Leave
Required

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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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.
Ayn Rand
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Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.
Ayn Rand
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There is only one institution that can arrogate to itself the power legally to trade by means of rubber checks: the government. And it is the only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities (and paper money) are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production.
Ayn Rand
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To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.
Ayn Rand
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When a man attempts to deal with me by force, I answer him, by force.
Ayn Rand
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My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Ayn Rand
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Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through.
Ayn Rand
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Dominique as Gail looks at her ... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence.
Ayn Rand
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
Ayn Rand
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Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property-by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.
Ayn Rand
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I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.
Ayn Rand
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The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”-not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form-by giving presents to one's friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
Ayn Rand
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A man who seeks escape from the responsibility of supporting his life by his own thought and effort, and wishes to survive by conquering, ruling and exploiting others, is NOT an Individualist.
Ayn Rand
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Statism needs war a free country does not. Statism survives by looting a free country survives by producing.
Ayn Rand
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Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.
Ayn Rand
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Those who say theory and practice are two unrelated realms are fools in one and scoundrels in the other.
Ayn Rand
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Great men can't be ruled.
Ayn Rand
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Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage-the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterologic al traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry.
Ayn Rand
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As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand