Quote

A story is an end in itself. It is not written to teach, sell, explain or destroy anything. It is not written even to entertain. It is written as a man is born - an organic whole, dictated only by its own laws and its own necessity - an end in itself, not a means to an end.

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
Whole
Literature
Necessity
Mean
Law
Sell
Even
Story
Explain
Men
Born
Sells
Means
Destroy
Ends
Laws
Dictated
Stories
Teach
Entertain
Anything
Written
Organic

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious
Ayn Rand
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I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.
Ayn Rand
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The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.
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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Ever since Kant divorced reason from reality, his intellectual descendants have been diligently widening the breach.
Ayn Rand
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No man can use his brain to think for another.
Ayn Rand
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The end does not justify the means. No one's rights can be secured by the violation of the rights of others.
Ayn Rand
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.
Ayn Rand
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Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.
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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.
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.
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You don't know how hard I've tried to be left standing all by myself.
Ayn Rand
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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.
Ayn Rand
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Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection, and the base of a moral existence.
Ayn Rand
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Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand
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Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads.
Ayn Rand
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There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
Ayn Rand
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It is the basic, metaphysical fact of man's nature -- the connection between his survival and his use of reason -- that capitalism recognizes and protects.
Ayn Rand
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If a life can have a 'theme-song' - and I believe every worthwhile one has - mine is [best] expressed in one word: Individualism.
Ayn Rand
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Most American men are repressors.
Ayn Rand