Ayn Rand Quotes About Objectivism
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I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.
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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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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).
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I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
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Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
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I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
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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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Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority.
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The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
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If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.
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My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
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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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Everyone has the right to make his own decisions, but none has the right to force his decision on others.
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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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If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
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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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I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.
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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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Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
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The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
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When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
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To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'
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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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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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Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.
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It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.
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There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.
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