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Ayn Rand Quotes

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Famous Ayn Rand Quotes

“No advocate of reason can claim the right to force his ideas on others. No advocate of the free mind can claim the right to force the minds of others. No rational society, no co-operation, no agreement, no understanding, no discussion are possible among men who propose to substitute guns for rational persuasion.”

MenMindIdeasReasonForceUnderstandingGunClaimsRationalDiscussionOperationsAgreementSubstitutesPersuasionPropose
Book:For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)
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“Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims - as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force - he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason.”

IfsMenWantMeanReasonFactsForceWishDealsConsciousnessSatisfactionSurrenderObedienceAgreementDictatorConsentCraveCravingMysticAssertionWhimDictating
Book:Atlas Shrugged
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“Government control of the economy, no matter in whose behalf, has been the source of all the evils in our industrial society -- and the solution is laissez-faire capitalism, i.e., the abolition of any and all forms of intervention in production and trade, the separation of State and Economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of Church and State.”

WayHas BeensMatterStatesReasonGovernmentFormEvilChurchEconomySourceSolutionsCapitalismEconomicsTradeProductionsSeparationBehalfInterventionChurch And StateSeparation Of Church And StateAbolitionLaissez FaireLaissez Faire Capitalism
Author:Ayn Rand
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“Look around you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man’s mind. You will see man’s unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind. And if you ask me, what is greatness? I will answer, it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.”

IfsMenMindLooksSelfReasonPurposeValuesThreeAsksAnswersSelf EsteemGreatnessAchievementCapacityFundamentalsMonstersEsteemAsk MeLive ByFacultyHelplessUnlimited
Author:Ayn Rand
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“The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive — a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society — a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself.... The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.”

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Author:Ayn Rand
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