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Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
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The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.
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Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
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An artist does not fake reality--he *stylizes* it.
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He had a big head and a face so ugly it became almost fascinating.
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Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
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A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.
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James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning.
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If men want to oppose war, it is *statism* that they must oppose.
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Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
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There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
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There is a fundamental conviction which some people never acquire, some hold only in their youth, and a few hold until the end of their days--the conviction that ideas matter . . .
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Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments.
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Art is the indespensible medium for the communication of a moral idea.
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Doctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer.
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The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them.
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Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.
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Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions.
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Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another's values.
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Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.
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Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it.
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Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.
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Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned.
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That which you call your soul or spirit is your conciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
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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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