Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand

Philosopher, Novelist

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher known for her development of Objectivism and works like 'Atlas Shrugged'.

Men Mean Thinking Rights People Sacrifice
Born
February 2, 1905
Died
March 6, 1982
Quotes
1K
Rank
#119

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Ayn Rand quotes (page 19 of 53)

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Ayn Rand Philosopher, Novelist
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"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it-that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life-that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence."

Responsibility Acceptance Men
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"A culture is made — or destroyed — by its articulate voices."

Voice Culture Made
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"Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it."

Philosophy Facts Recognition
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"To fear to face an issue is to believe that the worst is true."

Fear Believe Issues
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"We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt."

Work Men Self
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"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values-that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind."

Inspirational Success Acceptance
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"To interpose the threat of physical destruction between a man and his perception of reality, is to negate and paralyze his means of survival to force him to act against his own judgment, is like forcing him to act against his own sight"

Mean Reality Men
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"I am interested in politics so that one day I will not have to be interested in politics."

One Day Liberty Politics
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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 necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence—by his own choice."

Power Men Escaping
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"There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold to the end of their days-the conviction that ideas matter . . . . That ideas matter means that knowledge matters, that truth matters, that one's mind matters . . ."

Mean Ideas People
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"The more propaganda . . . conservatives spread for capitalist economics while at the same time preaching collectivism morally and philosophically , the more nails they’ll drive into capitalism’s coffin."

Nails Coffins Economics
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"An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes."

Philosophy Eye Cutting
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"I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between."

People Half Way
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"I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I've given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way I can want you to love me."

Love You Sacrifice Air
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"Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

People Want Fountainhead
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"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one."

Years Joy May
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"Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action."

Government Special Liberty
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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."

Regret Emptiness Moments
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