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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.

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
Artists
Passion
Desire
Fear
Artist
Identifying
Nature
Admiration
Receive
Violent

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every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise.
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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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What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?
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As we gain knowledge, we do not become more certain, we become certain of more.
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Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.
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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.
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Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that “everybody is white” or “everybody is black” or “everybody is neither white nor black, but gray,” is not a moral judgment, but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.
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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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I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
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A good quotation must be a complete entity. It must be like a headline - sharp, clear, whole.
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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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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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That which is not worth contemplating in life, is not worth recreating in art.
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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life.
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It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious
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I am only concerned with politics so I may see the day when I don't have to be concerned with politics.
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You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value.
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A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition.
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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.
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The most depraved type of human being ... (is) the man without a purpose.
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