{"author":"Ayn Rand","author_id":"Ayn+Rand","total_quotes":478,"quotes":[{"text":"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?","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["self-awareness","self-determination"],"id":1404,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Why had we let it go? Why had we both been condemned...To an exile among dreary strangers who had made us give up all desire for rest, for friendship, for the sound of human voices? Could I now reclaim a single hour spent talking to my brother, Philip, and give it to Ken Daggart? Who made it our duty to accept, as the only reward for our work, the gray torture of pretending love for those who roused nothing but contempt?","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["friendship"],"id":2012,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Man is an end in himself.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["individualism","life","objectivism","philosophy","success"],"id":3603,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["achievement","admiration","atlas-shrugged","inspirational","love","objectivism"],"id":4179,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"To be able to say 'I love you', one has to be able to say 'I.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["drama"],"id":6454,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"God forgives those who invent what they need.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["opportunities"],"id":8377,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"We are on strike, we, the men of the mind.We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["guilt","intellect","life","pursuit-of-happiness","rewards","work"],"id":9063,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"What you think is an illusion created by your glands  your emotions and  in the last analysis  by the content of your stomach. That gray matter you're so proud of is like a mirror in an amusement park which transmits to you nothing but distorted signals from reality forever beyond your grasp.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["thinking","thought"],"id":9349,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced -- since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea. Though how in the hell one passes judgement on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I'll ever understand.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["context","ideas","society"],"id":9680,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"},{"text":"If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.","author":"Ayn Rand","tags":["jealousy","parasitism","rand"],"id":9747,"author_id":"Ayn+Rand"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":478,"pages":48,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}