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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“I can say-not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological , ethical, political and esthetic roots-that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”

WorldI CanCountryStatesAmericaPoliticalUnitedMoralPrinciplesUnited StatesRootsOriginalsPatrioticEthicalUnited States Of AmericaMetaphysicalFoundingWorld History
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.”

MenLifeFeelingsPurposeOrderEvilHe ManCapableMercyNovelistsProductiveUrgesPurpose Driven LifeDriftingControl Of Your LifePurposelessness
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... 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.”

WorldRealSoulFireHeroBattleAddictionChecksRecoveryYour SoulAddictSobrietyDrug AddictionDrugs And AlcoholDrug AddictRecoveringSwampsIrreplaceableAddiction RecoveryAlcohol AddictionDrug Addiction RecoveryAddicts In RecoveryInspirational Addiction RecoveryOvercoming AddictionInspirational RecoveryAlcohol RecoveryDrug RecoveryMotivational RecoveryInspirational Drug Recovery
Book:Ayn Rand Novel Collection
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“The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.”

MenGovernmentIndividualSocialRightsWrittenCitizensProtectConstitutionBillsCriminalsDeclarationBill Of RightsExplicitIndividual RightsSocial Power
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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“Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.”

PeopleGovernmentActionSupportPolicyCitizensSpendingScalesSavingArtificialExpansionInflationDeficitSavingsRobbersPlunderFiscal PolicyDeficit Spending
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“You'll come back, because yours is an error of knowledge, not a moral failure, not an act of surrender to evil, but only the last act of being victim to your own virtue. We'll wait for you and when you come back, you will have discovered that there need never be any conflict among your desires, nor so tragic a clash of values as the one you've borne so well.”

NeedsWellsLastsDesireValuesEvilWaitingMoralKnowledgeVirtueConflictVictimErrorsSurrenderTragicClashMoral Failure
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The men of the press, who despised their own profession, did not know why they were enjoying it today. One of them, a young man with years of notorious success behind him and a cynical look of twice his age, said suddenly, 'I know what I'd like to be: I wish I could be a man who covers news!'”

KnowsMenYearsLooksSaidAgeTodaySuccessYoungWishEnjoyBehindsHe ManNewsPressesProfessionYoung ManCynicalBe A ManDespisedNotorious
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“No value is higher than self-esteem, but you've invested it in counterfeit securities-and now your morality has caught you in a trap where you are forced to protect your self-esteem by fighting for the creed of self-destruction. The grim joke is on you: that need of self-esteem, which you're unable to explain or to define, belongs to my morality, not yours; it's the objective token of my code, it is my proof within your own soul.”

NeedsSoulSelfValuesFightingSecuritySelf EsteemHigherMoralityProtectJokesDestructionCaughtProofObjectivesEsteemCodeWhere You AreCreedsTrapsGrimSelf DestructionTokensCounterfeit
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“Self-esteem is reliance on one's power to think. It cannot be replaced by one's power to deceive. The self-confidence of a scientist and the self-confidence of a con man are not interchangeable states, and do not come from the same psychological universe. The success of a man who deals with reality augments his self-confidence. The success of a con man augments his panic.”

ThinkingMenSelfStatesRealityUniverseDealsSelf EsteemConfidenceScientistSelf ConfidenceEsteemPsychologicalPanicDeceivingReplacedRelianceDeceiverCon Artist
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The man of authentic self-confidence is the man who relies on the judgment of his own mind. Such a man is not malleable; he may be mistaken, he may be fooled in a given instance, but he is inflexible in regard to the absolutism of reality, i.e., in seeking and demanding truth.”

MenMindMaySelfRealityGivenSelf EsteemHe ManConfidenceJudgmentRegardSeekingSelf ConfidenceEsteemInstanceRelyMistakenFooledAuthentic SelfAbsolutism
Book:The New Left: the Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.”

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Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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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 . . .”

PeopleMindMeanIdeasEndsMatterYouthFundamentalsConvictionAcquire
Book:The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
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“Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement. There are only individual minds and individual achievements-an d a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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“Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned...to an exile among dreary strangers who had made us give up all desire for rest, for friendship, for the sound of human voices? Could I now reclaim a single hour spent talking to my brother, Philip, and give it to Ken Daggart? Who made it our duty to accept, as the only reward for our work, the gray torture of pretending love for those who roused nothing but contempt?”

GivingHumansMadeDesireSoundVoiceHoursTalkingAcceptingBrotherDutyGiving UpRewardsStrangerMade ItMy BrotherTortureGrayPretendingContemptExileLet It GoDrearyPhilipHuman Voice
Author:Ayn Rand
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