Ayn Rand Quotes

Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world—to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want. ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand To get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity. ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you." ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul--would you understand why that's much harder?" ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "Those who speak of love most promiscuously are the ones who've never felt it. They make some sort of feeble stew out of sympathy, compassion, contempt and general indifference, and they call it love. Once you've felt what it means to love as you and I know it--the total passion for the total height--you're incapable of anything less." ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. That presupposes the ability to think. Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn." ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "But you see, I have, let's say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I've chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I'm only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one." ~ The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand "Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it." ~ Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand "Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement." ~ Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand "People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking." ~ Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand