Top The Fountainhead Quotes

I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother.

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...

I want to sleep with you. Now, tonight, and at any time you may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin. your mouth, your hands...—I want you like an animal...or a whore.

The exquisite kindliness of her manner suggested that their relationship was of no possible consequence, that she could not pay him the tribute of hostility.

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.

You’re so beautiful, Dominique. Its such a lovely accident on God’s part that there’s one person who matches inside and out.

She had nothing to hide from him, nothing to keep unstated, everything was granted, answered, found.

The best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man w...

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.

She wondered why she had never noticed that she did not know his name and why she had never asked him. Perhaps because she had known everything she had to know about him from that first glance.

I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society.

I hate incompetence. I think it’s probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn’t make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myse...

You love your work. God help you, you love it! And thats the curse. That's the brand on your forehead for all of them to see. You love it and they know it, and they know they have you. Do you ever loo...

It’s easier to donate a few thousands to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It’s simple to seek substitutes for competence—such ea...

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.

The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or...

They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: ‘Is this true?’ They ask: ‘Is this what others think is true?’ Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do,...

Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men.

I love you, Dominique. I love you so much that nothing can matter to me—not even you. Can you understand that? Only my love—not your answer. Not even your indifference.