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My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live.

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
Existence
Choices
Axiom
Reason
Axioms
Live
Contained
Exists
Morality
Choice
Single

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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Happiness is not something you have in your hands it's something you carry in your heart. Happiness is one thing that multiplies by division. Happiness is that peculiar sensation you acquire when you are too busy to be miserable. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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And man will go on. Man, not men.
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There's only one passion in most artists more violent than their desire for admiration: their fear of identifying the nature of such admiration as they do receive.
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The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force.
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Allies never trust each other, but that doesn't spoil their effectiveness.
Ayn Rand
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To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
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Most American men are repressors.
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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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Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.
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.
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I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.
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The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights.
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Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
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An individualist is a man who says: 'I will not run anyone's life - nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule or be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone - nor sacrifice anyone to myself.'
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?
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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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One must differentiate between one's thoughts and one's emotions with full clarity and precision...No discussion, cooperation, agreement, or understanding is possible among men who substitute emotion for proof.
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...if men are to be ruled, then the enemy is reason.
Ayn Rand
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Through the dry phases of calculations in her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the hard, exhilarating pleasure of action.
Ayn Rand
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If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society-you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
Ayn Rand