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Not Selfishness, But Precisely The Absence Of A Self. Look At Them. The Man Who Cheats And Lies, But Preserves A Respectable Front. He Knows Himself To Be Dishonest, But Others Think He’s Honest And He Derives His Self-respect From That, Second-hand. The Man Who Takes Credit For An Achievement Which Is Not His Own. He Knows Himself To Be Mediocre, But He’s Great In The Eyes Of Others.

-Ayn Rand

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Not Selfishness, But Precisely

Ayn Rand

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Not Selfishness, But Precisely The Absence Of A Self. Look At Them. The Man Who Cheats And Lies, But Preserves A Respectable Front. He Knows Himself To Be Dishonest, But Others Think He’s Honest And He Derives His Self-respect From That, Second-hand. The Man Who Takes Credit For An Achievement Which Is Not His Own. He Knows Himself To Be Mediocre, But He’s Great In The Eyes Of Others.

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I Dont Work With Collectives. I Don't Consult, I Don't Co-operate, I Don't Collaborate.

For Centuries, The Battle Of Morality Was Fought Between Those Who Claimed That Your Life Belongs To God And Those Who Claimed That It Belongs To Your Neighbors - Between Those Who Preached That The Good Is Self-sacrifice For The Sake Of Ghosts In Heaven And Those Who Preached That The Good Is Self-sacrifice For The Sake Of Incompetents On Earth. And No One Came To Say That Your Life Belongs To You And That The Good Is To Live It.

You Don't Love Causes. You Don't Love Everybody Indiscriminately. You Love Only Those Who Deserve It.

There’s Nothing As Significant As A Human Face. Nor As Eloquent. We Can Never Really Know Another Person, Except By Our First Glance At Him. Because, In That Glance, We Know Everything. Even Though We’re Not Always Wise Enough To Unravel The Knowledge.

Love Should Be Treated Like A Business Deal, But Every Business Deal Has Its Own Terms And Its Own Currency. And In Love, The Currency Is Virtue. You Love People Not For What You Do For Them Or What They Do For You. You Love Them For The Values, The Virtues, Which They Have Achieved In Their Own Character.

Sacrifice Does Not Mean The Rejection Of The Worthless, But Of The Precious

One Can't Love Man Without Hating Most Of The Creatures Who Pretend To Bear His Name.

Don't Think. Believe. Trust Your Heart, Not Your Brain. Don't Think. Feel. Believe.

The Government's Only Proper Job Is To Protect Individual Rights Against Violence By Force Or Fraud ... To Protect Men From Foreign Invaders ... To Settle Disputes Among Men According To Objective Laws ... The Greatness Of The Founding Fathers Was How Well They Understood This Issue And How Close Some Of Them Came To Understanding It Perfectly.

If A Man Speculates On What 'society' Should Do For The Poor, He Accepts Thereby The Collectivist Premise That Men's Lives Belong To Society And That He, As A Member Of Society, Has The Right To Dispose Of Them...that Psychological Confession Reveals The Enormity Of The Extent To Which Altruism Erodes Men's Capacity To Grasp The Concept Of Rights Or The Value Of An Individual Life.

As We Gain Knowledge, We Do Not Become More Certain, We Become Certain Of More.

Lobbying' Is The Activity Of Attempting To Influence Legislation By Privately Influencing The Legislators. It Is The Result And Creation Of A Mixed Economy-of Government By Pressure Groups. Its Methods Range From Mere Social Courtesies And Cocktail-party Or Luncheon "friendships" To Favors, Threats, Bribes, Blackmail.

Pressure Groups

If You Tell An Amateur That His Story Is Not Good, He Always Declares Indignantly: 'oh, But It Really Happened Just Like This!' The Writer Who Doesn't Understand That This Is Beside The Point Is Not A Writer At All.

A Viler Evil Than To Murder A Man, Is To Sell Him Suicide As An Act Of Virtue.

It Is Too Early To Feel Fear Of The Future When One Is Under 30, And Too Late After That. What I Mean Is That One Must Never Allow Fear To Become One's Permanent Sense Of Life. The Important Thing Is To Prepare Yourself Intellectually To Deal With Whatever Circumstances You May Encounter, Which Requires That You Define Your Values Fully, Clearly And Rationally -- And Never Betray Them.

Rationalization Is A Process Of Not Perceiving Reality, But Of Attempting To Make Reality Fit One’s Emotions.

Statism Needs War; A Free Country Does Not. Statism Survives By Looting; A Free Country Survives By Producing.

The Lust That Drives Others To Enslave An Empire, Had Become, In Her Limits, A Passion For Power Over Him. She Had Set Out To Break Him, As If, Unable To Equal His Value, She Could Surpass It By Destroying It, As If The Measure Of His Greatness Would Thus Become The Measure Of Hers, As If The Vandal Who Smashed A Statue Were Greater Than The Artist Who Had Made It, As If The Murderer Who Killed A Child Were Greater Than The Mother Who Had Given It Birth.

Kira, The Highest Thing In Man Is Not His God. It's That In Him Which Knows The Reverence Due A God. And You, Kira, Are My Highest Reverence.

I Made My Fortune By Being Able To Spot A Certain Kind Of Man.

The Pressure Disappeared With The First Word He Put On Paper. He Thought--while His Hand Moved Rapidly--what A Power There Was In Words; Later, For Those Who Heard Them, But First For The One Who Found Them; A Healing Power, A Solution, Like The Breaking Of A Barrier. He Thought, Perhaps The Basic Secret The Scientists Have Not Discovered, The First Fount Of Life, Is That Which Happens When A Thought Takes Shape In Words.

What Is Morality, She Asked. Judgement To Distinguish Right And Wrong, Vision To See The Truth, And Courage To Act Upon It, Dedication To That Which Is Good, Integrity To Stand By The Good At Any Price.

People Create Their Own Questions Because They Are Afraid To Look Straight. All You Have To Do Is Look Straight And See The Road, And When You See It, Don't Sit Looking At It - Walk.

I Am Opposed To All Forms Of Control; I Am For An Absolute Laissez Faire, Free, Unregulated Economy. I Am For The Separation Of The State And Economics, Just As We Had Separation Of State And Church, Which Led To Peaceful Coexistence Among Different Religions...so The Same Applies To Economics. If You Separate The Government From Economics, If You Do Not Regulate Production And Trade, You Will Have Peaceful Cooperation, And Harmony And Justice Among Men.

This Was The Great Clarity Of Being Beyond Emotion, After The Reward Of Having Felt Everything One Could Feel.

The Purpose Of Man's Life...is To Become An Abject Zombie Who Serves A Purpose He Does Not Know, For Reasons He Is Not To Question.

And He Said Her Name To Fill The Space Of Five Years.

God... A Being Whose Only Definition Is That He Is Beyond Man's Power To Conceive.

Every Form Of Happiness Is Private. Our Greatest Moments Are Personal, Self-motivated, Not To Be Touched".

Non-thinking Is An Act Of Annihilation, A Wish To Negate Existence, An Attempt To Wipe Out Reality. But Existence Exists; Reality Is Not To Be Wiped Out, It Will Merely Wipe Out The Wiper

That Love Is Reverence, And Worship, And Glory, And The Upward Glance. Not A Bandage For Dirty Sores. But They Don’t Know It. Those Who Speak Of Love Most Promiscuously Are The Ones Who’ve Never Felt It. They Make Some Sort Of Feeble Stew Out Of Sympathy, Compassion, Contempt, And General Indifference, And They Call It Love. Once You’ve Felt What It Means To Love As You And I Know It – The Total Passion For The Total Height – You’re Incapable Of Anything Less.

Now You See, Dr. Stadler, You're Speaking As If This Book Were Addressing To A Thinking Audience. If It Were, One Would Have To Be Concerned With Such Matters As Accuracy, Validity, Logic And The Prestige Of Science. But It Isn't. It's Addressed To The Public.

Let Us Destroy, But Don't Let Us Pretend That We Are Commiting An Act Of Virtue.

There Are No Little People In America. There Are Only People, Equal Before The Law, Yearning To Breathe Free And Wanting To Achieve The Best Within Them.

Freedom (n.): To Ask Nothing. To Expect Nothing. To Depend On Nothing.

Independent Women

Freedom Of Association Includes The Freedom Not To Associate.

Thanksgiving Is A Typically American Holiday...the Lavish Meal Is A Symbol Of The Fact That Abundant Consumption Is The Result And Reward Of Production.

A Culture Is Made — Or Destroyed — By Its Articulate Voices.

What Is Greatness? I Will Answer: It Is The Capacity To Live By The Three Fundamental Values Of John Galt: Reason, Purpose, Self-esteem.

Volumes Can Be And Have Been Written About The Issue Of Freedom Versus Dictatorship, But, In Essence, It Comes Down To A Single Question: Do You Consider It Moral To Treat Men As Sacrificial Animals And To Rule Them By Physical Force?

It's Such A Waste To Be Subtle And Vicious With People Who Don't Even Know That You're Being Subtle And Vicious

I Saw That Evil Was Impotent—that Evil Was The Irrational, The Blind, The Anti-real—and That The Only Weapon Of Its Triumph Was The Willingness Of The Good To Serve It.

I Consider Promiscuity Immoral. Not Because Sex Is Evil, But Because Sex Is Too Good And Too Important.

"you Were Not Born To Be A Second-hander." Howard Roark To Gail Wynand In "the Fountainhead"

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.

An Inventor Is A Man Who Asks 'why?' Of The Universe And Lets Nothing Stand Between The Answer And His Mind.

Faith Is The Wors Curse Of Mankind, As The Exact Antithesis And Enemy Of Thought.

Every Government Interference In The Economy Consists Of Giving An Unearned Benefit, Extorted By Force, To Some Men At The Expense Of Others.

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