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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
135a749	the best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards.		howard-roark the-fountainhead standards	Ayn Rand
26733de	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."		independence freedom the-fountainhead	Ayn Rand
d502f55	I had been opposed to the practice of dedicating books; I had held that a book is addressed to any reader who proves worthy of it.			Ayn Rand
1838f6c	But a few understand that building is a great symbol we live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this, a house he owns is a statement of his life.			Ayn Rand
989147a	Don't tell me your evaluation. Give me the facts.		hank-rearden facts	Ayn Rand
847f351	Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing.			Ayn Rand
9c47bf1	You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes.			Ayn Rand
6eb57d5	A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not great if one can reason it; it is not deep if one can see its bottom.			Ayn Rand
108f5f8	We are nothing mankind is all			Ayn Rand
0f3375e	She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it.		progress utility purpose technology	Ayn Rand
1ea2318	He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.			Ayn Rand
7755b07	When they lay in bed together it was--as it had to be, as the nature of the act demanded--an act of violence. It was surrender, made the more complete by the force of their resistance. It was an act of tension, as the great things on earth are things of tension. It was tense as electricity, the force fed on resistance, rushing through wires of metal stretched tight; it was tense as water made into power by the restraining violence of a dam...		dominique-francon howard-roark the-fountainhead	Ayn Rand
1c6e329	I don't make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of anything. I'm an utter egotist.		howard-roark the-fountainhead	Ayn Rand
157db9c	Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.		sex francisco-d-anconia	Ayn Rand
ebdf7a1	It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature--and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning--and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls. AYN RAND New York, May 1968			Ayn Rand
61e8ee2	You don't care what others think - which might be understandable. But you don't care even to make them think as you do?" "No." "But that's...that's monstrous." "Is it? Probably. I couldn't say."			Ayn Rand
d31493b	Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it. We are twenty-one years old. We are six feet tall, and this is a burden, for there are not many men who are six feet tall. Ever have the Teachers and the Leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: "There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers." But w..			Ayn Rand
c42e3c5	You don't have to see through the eyes of others, hold onto yours, stand on your own judgment, you know that what is, is--say it aloud, like the holiest of prayers, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.		dagny-taggart judgment	Ayn Rand
8834e8c	We alone, of the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it.		freedom-of-thought pride	Ayn Rand
4fa783d	If life is a process of self-sustaining action, then this is the distinctly human mode of action and survival: to think--to produce--to meet the challenges of existence by a never-ending effort and inventiveness.			Ayn Rand
e065094	I don't like the thing that's happening to people, Miss Taggart. I don't know. But I've watched them here for twenty years and I've seen the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they're hurrying because they are afraid. It's not a purpose that drives them, its fear. They're not going anywhere, they're escaping.			Ayn Rand
3a71a5f	Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousn..		virtue pain man mind good independence morality reason happiness life philosophy truth wisdom john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
517681b	Observe the nature of today's alleged peace movements. Professing love and concern for the survival of mankind, they keep screaming that the nuclear-weapons race should be stopped, that armed force should be abolished as a means of settling disputes among nations, and that war should be outlawed in the name of humanity. Yet these same peace movements do not oppose dictatorships; the political views of their members range through all shades ..			Ayn Rand
8c82cad	The leaves had edges of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and fire flowing high above us.			Ayn Rand
3297c43	Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality.		virtue man mind good morality reason happiness life philosophy john-galt pursuit-of-happiness objectivism rational think thinking morals values evil	Ayn Rand
2a3f4ca	As a basic step of self-esteem, learn to treat as the mark of a cannibal any man's demand for your help. To demand it is to claim that your life is his property - and loathsome as such claim might be, there's something still more loathsome: your agreement. Do you ask if it's ever proper to help another man? No- if he claims it as his right or as a moral duty that you owe him. Yes- if such is your own desire based on your own selfish pleasur..		virtue suffering trade self-esteem values	Ayn Rand
6659a53	You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.		sacrifice life philosophy john-galt morals values	Ayn Rand
34fa147	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.		pain suffering the-fountainhead	Ayn Rand
f65b159	But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life.		sex life philosophy convictions	Ayn Rand
ca3adc4	He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion--prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded.		joy the-fountainhead	Ayn Rand
f74d0d8	He demanded of all people the one thing he had never granted anybody: obedience.			Ayn Rand
c2115c3	The structures were austere and simple, until one looked at them and realized what work, what complexity of method, what tension of thought had achieved the simplicity.		the-fountainhead complex simple	Ayn Rand
28d4e45	All your life, you have heard yourself denounced, not for your faults, but for your greatest virtues. You have been hated, not for your mistakes, but for your achievements. You have been scorned for all those qualities of character which are your highest pride. You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgment and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind..		francisco-d-anconia hank-rearden	Ayn Rand
0c27d27	He saw an evening when he sat slumped across his desk in that office. It was late and his staff had left; so he could lie there alone, unwitnessed. He was tired. It was as if he had run a race against his own body, and all the exhaustion of years, which he refused to acknowledge, had caught him at once and flattened him against the desk top. He felt nothing, except the desire not to move. He did not have the strength to feel--not even to su..			Ayn Rand
eb0add4	I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values.		philosophy john-galt	Ayn Rand
8781806	The walls are cracked and water runs upon them within threads without sound, black and glistening as blood.			Ayn Rand
358f07c	The sky is a soggy purple.			Ayn Rand
b910ad2	At a time like this, we can't afford the luxury of thinking!			Ayn Rand
e0231e1	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.			Ayn Rand
8be4d31	I'm going to die," he said aloud--and yawned. He felt no relief, no despair, no fear. The moment of his end would not grant him even the dignity of seriousness. It was an anonymous moment; a few minutes ago, he had held a toothbrush in that hand; now he held a gun with the same casual indifference." --			Ayn Rand
ecf54c8	He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all.			Ayn Rand
c40716d	I see man as a hero. With his own happiness as his moral obligation; productive achievementbas his noblest activity and reason as the only absolute.			Ayn Rand
61b6edf	What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."			Ayn Rand
3f08ccf	He has once built his fortune, starting out with empty hands; now he had to rebuild his life, starting out with an empty spirit			Ayn Rand

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