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Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes,thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you'd give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?" "I've felt it all my life," she said.”

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Book:Atlas Shrugged
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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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Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

EarthPoliticalReligionIndividualFreedomLibertyDemocracyRightsSubjectsProtectVoteFunctionMajorityOppressionMinoritiesIndividualismSmallestCollectivismRight To VoteIndividual RightsObjectivismPolitical OppressionMajority And MinorityMinority Government
Book:The Virtue of Selfishness
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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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Author:Ayn Rand
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“It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.”

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Book:The Fountainhead
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“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”

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Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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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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Book:Anthem
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“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 anything but for that which I want?”

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Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“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.”

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