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.

~ Ayn Rand

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 who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

~ Ayn Rand

You can fake virtue for an audience. You can’t fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running.

~ Ayn Rand

What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life.

~ Ayn Rand

...What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood?Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I’m used to that.

~ Ayn Rand

The audience looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear.

~ Ayn Rand

Notice how they’ll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once...There’s a special, insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They’ve got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them—because they don’t exist within him and that’s the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent man.

~ Ayn Rand

I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom.”“You call that freedom?”“To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

~ Ayn Rand

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 himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison.

~ Ayn Rand

I’ll listen if you want me to... But I think I should tell you now that nothing you can say will make any difference. If you don’t mind that, I don’t mind listening.

~ Ayn Rand

You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act...

~ Ayn Rand

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 easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.

~ Ayn Rand

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

~ Ayn Rand

It’s a law of survival, isn’t it?—to seek the best. I didn’t come for your sake. I came for mine.

~ Ayn Rand

...Opinion without a rational process.

~ Ayn Rand