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Men prosper or fail, survive or perish in proportion to the degree of their rationality.

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
Survive
Degree
Fail
Degrees
Failing
Prosper
Men
Rationality
Perish
Proportion

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Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work, pride is the result.
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Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
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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.
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We didn't really have to take everything so seriously, did we?
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But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.
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Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others-misfortu ne is not a mortgage on achievement-fai lure is not a mortgage on success-sufferi ng is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence-man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone’s altar nor for anyone’s cause-life is not one huge hospital.
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The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
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There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men.
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Within the extent of your knowledge, you are right.
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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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Mysticism requires the notion of the unknowable, which is revealed to some and withheld from others this divides men into those who feel guilt and those who cash in on it.
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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.'
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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.
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A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
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Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
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A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack
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The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development he is like a pianist who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives a concert.
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When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter if I am right, he will learn if I am wrong, I will one of us will win, but both will profit.
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I can say-not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological , ethical, political and esthetic roots-that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.
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