Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead Quotes
To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?
Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.
I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artists metaphysical value judgments.
The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.
No speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgement on a man than on an idea.
What is kinder--to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance--or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?
I’ll listen if you want me to... But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don’t mind that, I don’t mind listening.
You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act...
I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom.”“You call that freedom?”“To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.
It’s a law of survival, isn’t it?—to seek the best. I didn’t come for your sake. I came for mine.
You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running.
This is pity, ” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.
The unrecognized genius-that's one old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one-the genius recognized too well?
Never place your punch at the beginning of a column nor at the end. Sneak it in where it's least expected. Fill a whole column with drivel, just to get in that one important line.
A desire to choose the hardest might be a confession of weakness in itself.
Great men can’t be ruled... The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional.
Roark spoke quietly. He was the only man in the room who felt certain of his own words.
A house can have integrity, just like a person, ' said Roark, 'and just as seldom.
Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty.
I’m not capable of suffering completely. I never have. It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it’s not really pain.
Men hate passion, any great passion. Henry Cameron made a mistake : he loved his work. That was why he fought. That was why he lost.
I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable.
All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.
But, you see, it's not what you do that matters really. It's only you.""Me what?""Just you here. Or you in the city. Or you somewhere in the world. I don't know. Just that.
A man’s spirit is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
..it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.
You’re so beautiful, Dominique. Its such a lovely accident on God’s part that there’s one person who matches inside and out.
Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men.
