“ The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. Ayn Rand
“ Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to? Ayn Rand
“ While a creator does and must worship Man (which means his own highest potentiality; which is his natural self-reverence), he must not make the mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to wor… Ayn Rand
“ Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no in… Ayn Rand
“ Do you know what she did today?" He leaned confidentially across the table, pointing at the dishes in the sink. "She went to the market and left all the breakfast dishes there and said she'd do them l… Ayn Rand
“ You always play it open, don’t you?” he asked.“I’ve never noticed you doing otherwise.”“I thought I was the only one who could afford to. Ayn Rand
“ The capacity for unclouded enjoyment, she thought, does not belong to irresponsible fools; an inviolate peace of spirit is not the achievement of a drifter; to be able to laugh like that is the end re… Ayn Rand
“ Well, whose opinion did you take?”“I don’t ask for opinions.”“What do you go by?”“Judgment.”“Well, whose judgment did you take?”“Mine.”“But whom did you consult about it?”“Nobody. Ayn Rand
“ He knew that the dread in these men’s minds was not of the fact, but of his naming it—as if the fact had not existed, but his words held the power to make it exist. Ayn Rand
“ ...dangers, to Francisco, were merely opportunities for another brilliant performance; there were no battles he could lose, no enemies to beat him. Ayn Rand
“ She wanted to tell him of the years she had spent looking for men such as he to work with; she wanted to tell him that his enemies were hers, that she was fighting the same battle... Ayn Rand
“ It was the only lie she ever told. She did not do it to protect Francisco; she did it because she felt, for some reason which she could not define, that the incident was a secret too precious to share… Ayn Rand
“ She lay on her back, looking up at the sky, feeling no desire to move or think or know that there was any time beyond this moment. Ayn Rand
“ Are you saying,” he asked slowly, “that I rose in your estimation when you found that I wanted you?”“Of course.”“That’s not the reaction of most people to being wanted.”“It isn’t.”“Most people feel th… Ayn Rand
“ Throughout his life, whenever he became convinced that a course of action was right, the desire to follow it had come automatically. Ayn Rand
“ ...he had acquired the conviction that one had to concern oneself with the rational, not the insane—that one had to seek that which was right, because the right answer always won—that the senseless, t… Ayn Rand
“ He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act. Ayn Rand
