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Civilization does not have to perish. The brutes are winning only by default.

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
Civilization
Winning
Doe
Brutes
Default
Perish

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Creation comes before distribution -- or there will be nothing to distribute.
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
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Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it.
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . .
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If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose.
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Most American men are repressors.
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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.
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You don't know how hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself.
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In order to deal with reality successfully - to pursue and achieve the values which his life requires - man needs self-esteem he needs to be confident of his efficacy and worth.
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If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose . . . the fact that they were the people who created the phrase to make money. No other language or nation had ever used these words before. . . . Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.
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Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.
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Collectivism answers: The power of society is unlimited. Society may make any laws it wishes, and force them upon anyone in any manner it wishes.
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Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
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What is morality, she asked. Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, vision to see the truth, and courage to act upon it, dedication to that which is good, integrity to stand by the good at any price.
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[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.
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The Founding Fathers were neither passive, death-worshipin g mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters as a political group they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history: they were thinkers who were also men of action.
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You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgement and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been calle anti social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads.
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No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.
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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
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The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
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