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d9dca06
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Do not let the hero in your soul parish, in lonely frustration, for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
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inspirational
john-galt
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Ayn Rand |
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b4a079b
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It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.
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Ayn Rand |
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ec03767
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People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt... They envy achievement, and their dream of g..
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greatness
mediocrity
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Ayn Rand |
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1f930f3
|
A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.
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Ayn Rand |
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e5e9558
|
People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they're reflecting too ... Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose.
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Ayn Rand |
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16b5183
|
He wanted her. He knew where to find her. He waited. It amused him to wait, because he knew that the waiting was unbearable to her. He knew that his absence bound her to him in a manner more complete and humiliating than his presence could enforce. He was giving her time to attempt an escape, in order to let her know her own helplessness when he chose to see her again.
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Ayn Rand |
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8786bc0
|
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he ..
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slavery
freedom
rights
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Ayn Rand |
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cb66951
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In a free society, one does not have to deal with those who are irrational. One is free to avoid them.
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Ayn Rand |
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b659acd
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When I die I hope to go to heaven--whatever that is--and I want to be able to afford the price of admission.
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Ayn Rand |
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e5476c3
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So you think that money is the root of all evil? [...] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take ..
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philosophy
inspirational
rand
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Ayn Rand |
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88b6d02
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But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.
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Ayn Rand |
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724d372
|
Don't think. Believe. Trust your heart, not your brain. Don't think. Feel. Believe.
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Ayn Rand |
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d266935
|
Of course I need you. I go insane when I see you. You can do almost anything you wish with me. Is that what you want to hear? Almost, Dominique. And the things you couldn't make me do -- you could put me through hell if you demanded them and I had to refuse you, as I would. Through utter hell, Dominique. Does that please you? Why do you want to know whether you own me? It's so simple. Of course you do. All of me that can be owned. You'll ne..
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own
power
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Ayn Rand |
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e4fec8c
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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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speech
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Ayn Rand |
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927ab32
|
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
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Ayn Rand |
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d241f1b
|
I don't want to see you. I don't like you. I don't like your face. You look like an insufferable egotist. You're impertinent. You're too sure of yourself. Twenty years ago I would have punched your face with the greatest of pleasure.
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punch
old-man
ego
insulting
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Ayn Rand |
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543e505
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I do not think that tragedy is our natural fate and I do not live in chronic dread of disaster. It is no happiness, but suffering that I consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity that I regard as the abnormal exception in Human Life.
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philosophy
galt
taggart
objectivism
ayn-rand
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Ayn Rand |
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f2deba5
|
Worry is a waste of emotional reserve"." --
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Ayn Rand |
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24bbbb2
|
He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning...
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seeing
love
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Ayn Rand |
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ba595c3
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She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which no human words could ever tell and she knew it now. She had been awaiting it and she felt it, as if it had been, as if she had lived it. Life had been, if only because she had known it could be, and she felt it now as a hymn without sound, deep under the little whole that dripped red drops into the snow, deeper than that from which the red dr..
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life
philosophy
inspirational
individualism
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Ayn Rand |
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2f40e54
|
And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.
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inspirational
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Ayn Rand |
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e9a2046
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I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For 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.
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Ayn Rand |
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fa59d08
|
The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them (pg. 52).
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Ayn Rand |
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ebdebe0
|
There are no evil thoughts except one; the refusal to think.
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Ayn Rand |
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2c5b273
|
Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
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Ayn Rand |
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11fd880
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You still love me - even if there's one expression of it that you will always feel and want, but will not give me no longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it, and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in..
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Ayn Rand |
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00f3cb2
|
Because, you see, God--whatever anyone chooses to call God--is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it.
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Ayn Rand |
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43ac06a
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She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one had, took her two wrists, pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades. She twisted her head back. She felt his lips on her breast. She tore herself free...She fought like an animal. But she made no sound. She did not call for help. She heard the echoes ..
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sex
lust
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Ayn Rand |
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9dae730
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Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.
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integrity
objectivism
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Ayn Rand |
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8ee2b2e
|
What I feel for you is contempt. But it's nothing, compared to the contempt I feel for myself. I don't love you. I've never loved anyone. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. I wanted you as one wants a whore - for the same reason and purpose. I spent two years damning myself, because I thought you were above a desire of this kind. You're not. You're as vile an animal as I am. I should loathe my discovering it. I don't. Yesterday, ..
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Ayn Rand |
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27ad259
|
A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack
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Ayn Rand |
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e7e42db
|
I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others." - Howard Roark"
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Ayn Rand |
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69ec931
|
Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes..
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law
|
Ayn Rand |
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dac3aab
|
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.
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Ayn Rand |
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a9ca140
|
To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self esteem, is capable of love - because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed value. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone
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Ayn Rand |
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95629d0
|
Do it first and feel about it afterwards.' - Dagny Taggart
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Ayn Rand |
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420f832
|
Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.
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Ayn Rand |
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547fd0b
|
But I don't understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture? He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon. That, said the Dean, is the Parthenon. - So it is. - I haven't the time to waste on silly questions. - All right, then. - Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. - Shall I tell you what's rotten about it? - It's the Parthenon! - said the Dean. - Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon! ..
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history
|
Ayn Rand |
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b765ff5
|
I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.
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Ayn Rand |
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9c770f5
|
Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
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Ayn Rand |
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23484eb
|
Every loneliness is a pinnacle
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Ayn Rand |
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a031626
|
Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.
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Ayn Rand |
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54f51dc
|
Now look at me! Take a good look! I was born and I knew I was alive and I knew what I wanted. What do you think is alive in me? Why do you think I'm alive? Because I have a stomach and eat and digest the food? Because I breathe and work and produce more food to digest? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want--isn't that life itself? And who--in this damned universe--who can tell me why I should live for any..
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self-determination
|
Ayn Rand |
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769e11c
|
The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right to not agree, not to listen, and not to finance one's own antagonists.
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Ayn Rand |