Quote collection
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"The Romanticists predominantly, were enemies of capitalism, which they regarded as a prosaic, materialistic, “petty bourgeois” system — never realizing that it was the only system that could make freedom, individuality and the pursuit of values possible in practice."
"Rights are not a matter of numbers - and there can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob."
"Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." Roark: "But I don't think of you."
"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men."
"Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"
"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."
"Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me."
"Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. When I say 'capitalism,' I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church."
"You love only those who deserve it."
"Faith is the wors curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought."
"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."
"When men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements."
"Ethics is a code of values which guide our choices and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives."
"The ' pleasure' of being drunk is obviously the pleasure of escaping from the responsibility of Consciousness."
"Romantic art is the fuel and the spark plug of a Man's soul. It's task is to set a soul on fire and never let it go out."
"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."
"Censorship' is a term pertaining only to governmental action. No private action is censorship. No private individual or agency can silence a man or suppress a publication; only the government can do so. The freedom of speech of private individuals includes the right not to agree, not to listen and not to finance one's own antagonists."
"Professional intellectuals are the voice of a culture and are, therefore, its leaders, its integrators and its bodyguards."
"Talent alone is helpless today. Any success requires both talent and luck. And the 'luck' has to be helped along and provided by someone."
"I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals and I loathe humanity for its failure to live up to these possibilities."