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I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!

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
Please
Evil
Good
Unwilling
Wholly
Regard

More quotes by Ayn Rand

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But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.
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You'd let the whole world perish rather than soil that immaculate self of yours with a single spot of which you'd have to be ashamed.
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It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money.
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Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
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This was the great clarity of being beyond emotion, after the reward of having felt everything one could feel.
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Face a challenge and find joy in the capacity to meet it.
Ayn Rand
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
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In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.
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Life is the reward of virtue. And happiness is the goal and reward of life.
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The more you learn, the more you know that you know nothing.
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The most depraved type of human being ... (is) the man without a purpose.
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
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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.
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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.
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What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.
Ayn Rand
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We [entrepreneurs] required that you leave us free to function -- free to think and work as we choose ... -- free to earn our own profits and make our own fortunes ... Such was the price we asked, which you chose to reject as too high.
Ayn Rand
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I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a 'mainstream'. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.
Ayn Rand
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Hank, this is great. Yes. He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood.
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You love people, not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for their values their virtues.
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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.
Ayn Rand