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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.

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
Matter
Integrity
Matters
Honor
Principles
Objectivism
Issues
Compromise
Moral
Rational
Knowledge
Conviction
Truth
Basic

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.
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My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
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When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.
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A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition.
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I am interested in politics only in order to secure and protect freedom.
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But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.
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Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality-not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
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My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that “doesn’t count,” i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the pattern on which everybody makes mistakes [or] becomes irrational — not relating their one action or one conviction to another.
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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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A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack
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A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
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Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.
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My dear fellow, who will let you? That's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?
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Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute.
Ayn Rand
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I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.
Ayn Rand
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but their eyes were as cold blue glass buttons.
Ayn Rand
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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
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The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
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If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.
Ayn Rand