Ayn Rand quote: "If this is vise I want no virtue. ... I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. ... But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else."

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public...
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The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
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The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
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The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
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Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain o...
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To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
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Envy is the only name she could find for the monstrous thing she faced, but it was much worse...
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Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of ...
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Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
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I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
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Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises....
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He had always wanted to write Music and he could give no other identity to the thing he sought. If y...
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Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
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To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.
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America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive g...
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Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a paymen...
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Im waiting, for what, my kind of people, what kind is that, i can tell my kind of people by their fa...
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The American businessmen, as a class, have demonstrated the greatest productive genius and the most ...
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There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on...
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The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
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It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an au...
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People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an ac...
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...Aren’t they all acting on a selfish motive—to be noticed, liked, admired?”
“—by ot...
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Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-...
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Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, i...
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Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, t...
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Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but t...
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Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touc...
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Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but...
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Fransisco, you're some kind of very high nobility, aren't you?" He answered, "Not yet. The reason my...
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People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too ... Refl...
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She thought how strange it would be if she ever said 'Hello' to him. One did not greet oneself each ...
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I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place.
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Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline t...
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Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.
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I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not...
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If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
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I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.
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To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an...
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Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
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To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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This is the difference between my morality and hedonism. The standard is not: that is good which giv...
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Man's consciousness is his least known and most abused vital organ. Most people believe that conscio...
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What is a demanding pleasure that demands the use of ones mind! Not in the sense of problem solving,...
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A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
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Do not consider Collectivists as sincere but deluded idealists. The proposal to enslave some men for...
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The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man'...
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A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences, produces a slow,...
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All public interest legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the ...
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If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Obje...
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Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property righ...
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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That which you call your soul or spirit is your conciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is...
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The question isn't 'who is going to let me'; it's 'who is going to stop me'.
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An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man's value premises. An effect, not a c...
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Upper classes are a nation's past, the middle class its future.
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The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to ...
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Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics -- a rational ethics -- as a precondition...
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I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
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When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will lear...
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Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but...
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From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, ...
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It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial of...
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People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is lo...
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So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
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"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and en...
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Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we n...
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Thinking men cannot be ruled.
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"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and en...
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Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
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Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you...
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Reality confronts man with a great many "musts," but all of them are conditional; the formula of rea...
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The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't e...
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America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to "the common good", but by the productive...
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Capitalism is our only moral system. All other systems take advantage of man's rights and liberties...
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Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a gove...
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A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of p...
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Art is too serious to be taken seriously.
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...The purpose of man's life...is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know,...
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A culture is made -- or destroyed -- by its articulate voices.
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Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him a...
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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
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Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no m...
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We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
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To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".
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When personal judgment is inoperative (or forbidden), men's first concern is not how to choose, but ...
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There is only one path to Heaven. On Earth, we call it Love.
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Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or w...
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Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own c...
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Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is...
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A house can have integrity, just like a person,' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.
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Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake...
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Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciou...
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Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishono...
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Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.
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The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.
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Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights ...
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If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.
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Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopol...
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The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren'...
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Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
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The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to b...
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The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.
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To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.
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When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand a...
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Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independenc...
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Don't fool yourself, my dear. You're much worse than a bitch. You're a saint. Which shows why saints...
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I don't want to see you. I don't like you. I don't like your face. You look like an insufferable ego...
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There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another ...
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Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their bac...
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From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, ...
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Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave th...
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We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free ...
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Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
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A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
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Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's be...
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Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.
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Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to...
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Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction...
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No, you do not have to live as a man; it is an act of moral choice. But you cannot live as anything ...
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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth a...
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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing...
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The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the m...
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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 a...
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We are all brothers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.
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Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only wa...
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Of course I need you. I go insane when I see you. You can do almost anything you wish with me. Is th...
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He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting ...
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She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the wo...
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The right to vote is a *consequence*, not a primary cause, of a free social system -- and its value ...
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Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
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Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ru...
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Get the hell out of my way!
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The common good of a collective -- a race, a class, a state -- was the claim and justification of ev...
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The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.
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The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the mor...
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The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
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It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrass...
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Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. ...
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That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' i...
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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take pre...
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Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of mans val...
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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 ano...
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I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanctio...
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The upper classes are... a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
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Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday...The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant...
AYN RAND

Learn to value yourself, which means: to fight for your happiness.
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Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
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Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An ...
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To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his li...
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There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is alw...
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The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be ...
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A house can have integrity, just like a person
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In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit you had known in your childhood...
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Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actio...
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They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist without labor and, the laws of reality to the cont...
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To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to n...
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We are born into this world unarmed---our mind is our only weapon.
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Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the...
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When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
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Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.
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There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permit...
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He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who tea...
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"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is th...
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An Individualist is a man who lives for his own sake and by his own mind; he neither sacrifices hims...
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Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the ...
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If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fa...
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We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.

We are on strike against self-immolation. We a...
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All I mean is that a board of directors is one or two ambitious men--and a lot of ballast. I mean th...
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If you write a line of zeroes, it´s still nothing.
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Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dr...
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If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood ru...
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Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
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Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.
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It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrif...
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Beauty is a sense of harmony.
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
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At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings...
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Dagny leaned back in her chair. The short sentence was a shock. It was not merely relief: it was the...
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In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are at its worst. In th...
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When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to ...
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I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and s...
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A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be...
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He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting ...
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Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human l...
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Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental ...
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But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.
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Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagr...
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He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's...
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The man who produces while others dispose of his product is a slave.
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The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one actually committed
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Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one'...
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The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted ...
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The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. - Atlas Shrugged
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God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.
AYN RAND

Ayn Rand

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