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There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine, that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not preach submission to the power of some authority.

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
Theory
Philosophy
Religion
Attacked
Power
Submission
Reason
Preach
Never
Limited
Doctrine
Authority

More quotes by 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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Action without thought is mindlessness, and thought without action is hypocritical.
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A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.
Ayn Rand
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
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The only thing that matters my goal my reward my beginning my end is the work itself. My work done my way. A private personal selfish egotistical motivation. That’s the only way I function. That’s all I am.
Ayn Rand
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I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Ayn Rand
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Nobody has ever given a reason why men should be their brother's keepers.
Ayn Rand
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Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims.
Ayn Rand
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I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'
Ayn Rand
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The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.
Ayn Rand
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Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity.
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.
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If workers struggle for higher wages, this is hailed as social gains, if businessmen struggle for higher profits, this is damned as selfish greed.
Ayn Rand
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
Ayn Rand
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Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
Ayn Rand
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A good novel is an indivisible sum every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.
Ayn Rand
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When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
Ayn Rand
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If you want to save capitalism there is only one type of argument that you should adopt, the only one that has ever won in any moral issue: the argument from self-esteem. Check your premises, convince yourself of the rightness of your cause, then fight for capitalism with full, moral certainty.
Ayn Rand
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No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.
Ayn Rand