“ 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
“ 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 wonderfu… Ayn Rand
“ His smile had an attractive quality, the smile of a man of the world who used it, not to cover his words, but to stress the audacity of expressing a sincere emotion. Ayn Rand
“ He wanted nothing, for the time being, except to understand .... Without advice, assistance or plan, he began reading an incongruous assortment of books; he would find some passage which he could not… Ayn Rand
“ 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… Ayn Rand
“ 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 i… Ayn Rand
“ Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in ord… Ayn Rand
“ But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that. Ayn Rand
“ Any alleged right of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another isn't and can't be a right. Ayn Rand
“ An Individualist is a man who lives for his own sake and by his own mind; he neither sacrifices himself to others nor sacrifices others to himself; he deals with men as a trader - not as a looter; as… Ayn Rand
“ 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
“ If I found a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted-I'd have to depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a net, the… Ayn Rand
“ Your moral code begins by damning man as evil, then demands that he practice a good which it defines as impossible for him to practice…It demands that he starts, not with a standard of value, but with… Ayn Rand
“ You'd let the whole world perish rather than soil that immaculate self of yours with a single spot of which you'd have to be ashamed. Ayn Rand
“ Yes! And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows hi… Ayn Rand
“ Whatever it was, he thought, whatever the strain and the agony, they were worth it, because they had made him reach this day Ayn Rand
“ What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call his Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declares that he ate the fruit… Ayn Rand
