Some quotes from The Fountainhead that are insane September 21, 2006
Posted by sdpurtill in Books.trackback
UPDATE: I’ve moved my blog over to 31fps.com, so check that for my current updates.
I am on the home stretch of reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It’s been the most amazing book I’ve ever read in my life. About halfway through the book, I realized how many enlightening quotes the book was filled with, so I tried something new: I put a bunch of post-its inside the cover, and everytime I found a quote I liked, I’d slap a post-it on it. And that’s how I’ve come up with these quotes…
I will try to give the context for each quote, but reading the book is by far the best way to grasp the full meaning.
Gail Wynand, one of the richest man in NYC, talking to Dominique (his wife) about love
“Why have you been staring at me ever since we met? Because I’m not the Gail Wynand you’d heard about. You see, I love you. And love is exception-making. If you were in love you’d want to be broken, trampled, ordered, dominated, because that’s the impossible, in the inconceivable for you in your relations with people. That would be the one gift, the great exception you’d want to offer the man you loved. But it wouldn’t be easy for you.”
Alvah Scarret is one of the heads of Gail Wynand’s huge newspaper, The Banner, and his response to Wynand after Wynand fires one of the paper’s top writers
Scarret protested in panic: “Gail, you can’t fire Sally! Not Sally!“
“When I can’t fire anyone I wish on my paper, I’ll close it and blow up the God-damn building,” said Wynand calmly.
Peter Keating is basically the opposite of the hero, Howard Roark. He speaks of him here.
“I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality. I don’t mean in the sense of fame and I don’t mean that he won’t die some day. But he’s living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard–one can imagine him existing forever.”
Dominique talking to Wynand on his yacht
[Dominique] “I used to travel a great deal. I always felt just like that [hating to be at a destination]. I’ve been told it’s because I’m a hater of mankind.”
“You’re not foolish enough to believe that, are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely you’ve seen through that particular stupidity. I mean the one that claims the pig is the symbol of love for humanity–the creature that accepts anything. As a matter of fact, the person who loves everybody and feels at home everywhere is the true hater of mankind. He expects nothing of men, so no form of depravity can outrage him.”
“You mean the person whosays that there’s some good in the worst of us?”
“I mean the person whohas the filthy insolence to claim that he loves equally the man who made that statue of you and the manwho makes a Mickey Mouse balloonto sell on street corners. I mean the person who loves the men who prefer the Mickey Mouse to you statue–and there are many of that kind. I mean the person who loves Joan of Arc and the salesgirls in dress shops on Broadway–with equal fervor. I mean the person who loves your beauty and the women he sees in a subway–the kind that can’t cross their knees and show flesh hanging publicly over their garters–with the same sense of exaltation. I mean the person who loves the clean, steady, unfrightened eyes of man looking through a telescope and the white stare of an imbecile–equally. I mean quite a large, generous, magnanimous company. Is it you who hate mankind, Mrs. Keating?”
Wynand talking to Dominique about love, again
“Or that love is pity.”
“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”
“What’s your answer?”
“That love is reverence, and worship, and glory, and the upward glance. Not a bandage for dirty sores. BUt they don’t know it. 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.”
Peter Keating sitting by the fire realizing he isn’t happy
He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make them envy the fullness of his contentment. Why oculdn’t he convince himself? He had everything he’d ever wanted. He had wanted superiority–and for the last year he had been the undisputed leader of his profession. He had wanted fame–and he had five thick albums of clippings. He had wanted wealth–and he had enough to insure luxury for the rest of his life. He had everything anyone ever wanted. How many people struggled and suffered to achieve what he had achieved? How many dreamed and bled and died for this, without reaching it? “Peter Keating is the luckiest fellow on earth.” How often had he heard that?
And I saved the best for last (if you had the endurance to read this far…). It’s a scene where Dominique is speaking to Howard Roark
“Roark, before I met you, I had always been afraid of seeing someone like you, because I knew that I’d also have to see what I saw on the witness stand and I’d have to do what I did in that courtroom. I hated doing it, because it was an insult to you to defend you–and it was an insult to myself that you had to be defended… Roark, I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: their halway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between. They have their justifications. I don’t know. I don’t care to inquire. I know that it is the one thing not given me to understand. When I think of what you are, I can’t accept any reality except a world of your kind. Or at least a world in which you have a fighting chance and a fight on your own terms. That does not exist. And I can’t live life torn between that which exists–and you. It would mean to struggle against things and men who don’t deserve to be your opponents. Your fight, using their methods–and that’s too horrible a desecration. It would mean doing for you what I dod for Peter Keating: lie, flatter, evade, compromise, pander to every ineptitude–in order to beg of them a chance for you, beg them to let you live, to let you function, to beg them, Roark, not to laugh at them, but to tremble because they hold the power to hurt you. Am I too weak because I can’t do this? I don’t know which is the greater strength: to accept all this for you–or to love you so much that the rest is beyond acceptance. I don’t know. I love you too much.”
Have you read it ? What’s your favorite quote(s) ? And out of all these, which one made you think the most ?
First off let me say that I am really impressed with how much you have taken from this book. Wrapping myself around the idea that man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress is something that would be impossible for me to do at your age. The quote that sticks out to me is the one where Dominique is talking to Wynand on his yacht. There is some great dialogue about the generalization of love and mankind in there. I linked my blog so you can check it out.
hey. i’ve read the fountainhead a few months ago and i have to say that it is probably one of the best books i’ve ever read… there are SO many great quotes in that book its impossible to list them all.
i thot it was amazing how each character had such a unique way of looking at life and a different approach to dealing with the people and the society around them. Wynand, Dominique, and Howard all expressed there hatred of the society in different ways: Dominique mocked it, Wynand set out to destroy it, and Howard simply ignored it. Then there was keating who destroyed himself from the very beginning by relying on others in order to achieve success and therefore happiness. he got the success and yet in the end he still found himself constantly feeling envious of Howard- a man who compared to him had nothing.
as for toohey, he was also a parasite, but unlike keating he wasnt stupid. he knew exactly what he was doing and he enjoyed doing it. he enjoyed destroying greatness. he enjoyed the power he knew he had to manipulate anyone – or almost anyone. which reminds me of some of my favorite quotes in the book:
1- when legendary architect Henry Cameron warns Howard Roark of the “monster” he will be forced to face, he says:- “It’s a challenge in the face of something so vast and so dark, that all the pain on earth -and do you know how much suffering there is on earth? – all the pain comes from that thing you are going to face. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it should be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be… You’re on your way into hell, Howard.”
2- pg. 331, speaking to Howard Roark:- “That a great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best – that’s nothing. One can’t get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don’t want it?”
3- Toohey speaking to Dominique: “That’s the trouble with victims – they don’t even know they’re victims, which is as it should be, but it does become monotonous and take half the fun away. You’re such a rare treat – a victim who can appreciate the artistry of its own execution…”
4- When Toohey urges Roark to say what he thinks of him, Toohey presses the issue, saying: “Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.” and Roark replies, “But I don’t think of you.”
5- “Most people,” Roark says,”build as they live — as a matter of routine and senseless accident. But a few understand that building is a great symbol. We live in our minds, and existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state it in gesture and form.”
6- Last but definitely not least is part of Dominique’s speech in court, she says: “I am proving your case for you. I am proving why you must go with Ellsworth Toohey, as you will anyway. The Stoddard Temple must be destroyed. Not to save men from it, but to save it from men. What’s the difference, however? Mr. Stoddard wins… Let us destroy, but don’t let us pretend that we are committing an act of virtue. Let us say that we are moles and we object to mountain peaks… I realize fully that at this moment I am as futile as Howard Roark. This is my Stoddard Temple – my first and my last.”
those arent even a small fraction of the great quotes there are in that book – i didnt add any of the philosophical quotes in there, mostly just the quotes relating to the story and its characters. thats one of the things i loved most about the book, tho, that philosophy aside, it was still a great story and very well told.
one of the moments in the book that stands out most in my mind, though, and that really touched me was the part i think at the very beginning of part 4 where there’s this kid who wants to be an architect or artist or something, i dont remember, but anyway he’s riding his bike through the forest looking for some sort of inspiration, and then he comes across some hills where Roark had just completed one of his latest works, and he’s so astounded by what he sees, and he asks Roark, who’s standing there, who made those great buildings, and Roark says that it was him… then the boy smiles and thanks him and rides off into the sunset knowing that that one moment, that one sight, had now filled him with enough strength and inspiration to last him the rest of his life… and you just like know at that moment that that boy was going to grow up to have to face a life time of hardship, to go thru the same hell howard had to go through, but you still smile because for some reason deep down, you just know he’s gonna be ok, and that in the end, he’s going to beat the world… that one memory alone inpired me and made me love the book more than ever…
He was a very young man. He had just graduated from college — in this spring of the year 1935 — and he wanted to decide whether life was worth living. He did not know that this was the question in his mind. He did not think of dying. He thought only that he wished to find joy and reason and meaning in life — and that none had been offered to him anywhere.
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 inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all.
I belive that is the beggning of the quote you are refering to. I a well have read The Fountainhead and am a huge fan of Objectivism. There are many small quotes which stand out to me, but I feel the most important scene is the one on the yauht. Gail and Roark are out to sea together and Roark givs a small speech to Gail, about secondhanders. Here is the famous quote of ‘I would die for you, but I would never live for you’. Simply amazing.
I came across this blog searching for Fountainhead quotes. It reminded me of a quote I loved, actually it is the opening sentence. “Howard Roark laughed.” What a way to open one of the greatest books ever written. I think it shows everything Howard represents in the simplest of terms.
I am a big time fan of this book. have read it so many times but everytime it throws up something new for me to appreciate.
My favourite quote to this day remains when Roark says – To say I Love one must first know how to say ‘I’ …..It has me bowled everytime i read it
“But I don’t think of you.”
Amazing.
hey thanks
i was looking for a specific quote for an essay i was writing, and have already brought the book back to the library (overdue)…
reading all this stuff makes me realize i do want to read the second half of the book and remember how (surprisingly) good that book was. i just sort of got stuck at the part where dominique was married to keating
“There is nothing and he creates nothingness.”
-Gordon L. Prescott
(Part II, Ellsworth M. Toohey)
This is funny, because I did the same thing with The Fountainhead. My copy has those little flag post-it’s practically every 20 pages.
When Wynand is defending his papers (and I’m paraphrasing because the book isn’t in front of me):
“It is not up to me to provide people with self-respect which they do not have.”
i stumbled across this page somehow…i am nearly finished with it for the first time and i can say very naturally that this is one of the most incredible books i have ever read, though i’ve encountered few people who regard it with anything other than indifference or contempt. (i’m a senior in highschool). strange to think of the same thing occuring in a different time and place, as i write this nearly a year after you posted.
and my favorite part- i read the exchange between dominique and roark at the building site in clayton, and was left with the sensation, simply because of what each of them and their actions represent, that it was the most intensely passionate love scene i have ever encountered
the fountaihead is without a doubt the best book i have ever read because of the plot development. i love this book and encourage everyone to read it
I was always a big fan of this quote at the end of chapter 5, ““He walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one’s head””
My copy of the book has green highlighter marks all over it. its an amazing book, by and amazing author.
Ayn Rand is just great…i am her die hard fan …i am stunned with her way of thinking,just too inspiring…Atlas shrugged is my Bible,and she a god for me………
Nice page.
Minor correction, though. The quote listed above which begins, ““I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality.” was not spoken by Keating, but by Steven Mallory.
thorn
Gail is driving to the house, and thinks to himself:
“No, he thought, I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered- and that I loved it, THAT is the unanswered in my life. But I loved it.”
Still blown away by the intensity of this quote…
Also, the last interaction between Peter and Katie was so moving and heartwrenching… Greatest book of all time!
hey i don’t know you, but i’m glad you’re reading ayn rand! it’s a fabulous book, yes? much too underrated!
“a house can have integrity, just like a person,” said Roark, “and just as seldom.”
I dont have the book in front of me.. But I simply loved the ending speach.. The whole idea of individualism vs collectivism.. and the idea of selflessness vs selfishness..
Some of my favorite incidents..
1. When Roark is summoned by the dean.. And dean asks him to offer an apology.. And Roark refuses.. I dont remember the words, but tells the dean something on the lines that he can not teach anything more to him..
2. When Peter Keating wins the Kosmo-Slotnick building competition based on Roark’s drawings.. And offers a meagre sum to Roark for helping him.. And Roark returns it saying its a bribe from him so that Perer does not tell anyone Roark designed that building..
3. When Peter comes to Roark again for the final building for the poor people, after having lost all in life.. And he asks Roark to design it.. And asks what price Roark will take.. the whole incident is amazing.. so apt ..
4. Roark’s final speech in the courtroom.. about the idea of selflessness and all..
Ethical egoism vs. collectivism… god i love philosophy.
Does anyone know any other books, of another author that could be equally as inspiring and enjoyment to read? I’m so sick of wasting my time with mediocre, I need more greatness. I need another great author.
[...] more spectacular quotes, check out Sam’s page. digg_url = [...]
Lauren. Read Franny & Zooey, the Dark Tower series (it may seem beneath you in name, but not in content), maybe Conrad’s H.O.D., and most things by christopher hitchens.
Equally inspiring as this book? I’ve not read one, though great authors are everywhere.
No, I AM HER DIE HARD FAN!!!
Suvine.com
I am not sure whether anyone has already pointed to this. But the third quote you have put , about Change was not talked by Peter Keating , but Steven Mallory, the Sculptor. Please change it!
[...] are a lot of sites out there that have more quotes from the book. This entry was written by Isaac and [...]
“That’s the sort of thing I want you to understand, To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I ask you to keep your soul, would you understand why that is much harder.” -Pg.577 The Fountainhead
[...] More memorable quotes from the fountainhead are available here and here. [...]
Wynand talking to Dominique about love, again
“Or that love is pity.”
“Oh, keep still. It’s bad enough to hear things like that. To hear them from you is revolting–even as a joke.”
“What’s your answer?”…
Can anybody tell me what page this quote is from? It would mean a great deal to me. Thank you.
I’m suprised this one wasn’t listed.
“Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest memories are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing.”
Also:
“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom. To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”
Those are definately my favorite.
The Fountainhead is an amazing book. I’m now reading Atlas Shrugged which is great so far.
This was originally posted a long time ago, but i stumbled upon this page and just had to add one of my favorite quotes. I have it tacked up on the corkboard next to my desk at work to always remind me the essence of what Objectivism is, and how much i despise the thinking of people like Peter Keating. I don’t have the book in front of me, so i apologize for no page number.
“Peter Keating had never felt the need to formulate abstract convictions. But he had a working substitute. ‘A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not great if one can reason about it; it is not deep if one can see its bottom’ – this had always been his credo, unstated and unquestioned. This spared him any attempt to reach, reason, or see; and it cast a nice reflection of scorn on those who made the attempt.”
Brilliant summary of Philistinism
i’m about halfway through the fountanhead right now, and i totally agree that it is one of the best books i have ever read, by far.
it makes me happy to know so many other people enjoy the book. i had never even heard of it until i ran across it in borders one day.
For all of those who have read The Fountainhead, I suggest you read Atlas Shrugged as well. It’s just as amazing, maybe even more amazing, than The Fountainhead. It’s really well written and has eye-opening passages. One of my favorite parts is this speech about money that one of the characters give, it’s fantastic. I never thought of money the way Ayn Rand talks about it. I also like Roarke’s speech at the end of The Fountainhead.
“and now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we are asked to destroy the self.”
-howard roark
You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated.
My favorite scene is the one in the court room and that narley speech Roark gives!!! Classic!
I love a quote that doesn’t show the ignorance but reflects a deep understanding about the path to eternal satisfaction. I like “But I don’t think of you”
hey guys…im half-way through the fountainhead…i just love the way ayn rand has delved deep into then human mind and unravelled those truths that we are aware of only sub-consciously…and the sarcasm is just too good…
this book has some really powerful quotes… here are a few il always remeber..
Howard Roark to Dominique: ” To say ‘I Love You’, one must first know how to say the ‘I’…”
Ellsworth toohey (this is damn cheesy!!): “Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. so is elephantiasis. Both may be a disease”
Gail Wynanad to Ellsworth Toohey: ” My dear Mr. Toohey, don’t confuse me with my readers”
Dominique to Peter Keating, twenty months after their marriage, when they sit together in their bedroom: ” Your’e beginning to see, arent u Peter? Shall i make it clearer? you never wanted me to be real. u never wanted anyone to be. but u didnt want me to show it. you wanted act to help your act-a beautiful, complicated act, all twists, trimminga and words. all words. u didnt liek what i said about vincent knowlton. u liked it when i said the same thing under cover of virtuous sentiments. you didint want me to believe. you only wanted me to convince you that i believed. my real soul, Peter? It’s real only when its independent-you’ve discovered that, havnet you? it’s real olny when it chooses curtains and desserts-you’re right about that-curtains, desserts and religions, Peter, and the shape of buildings. but uve never wanted that. You wanted a mirror. people want nothing but mirrors around them. to reflect them while they’re reflecting too. you know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. usually in the more vulgar kind of hotels. Relections of reflections and echoes of echoes. no beginning and no end. no center and no purpose. i gave you what u wanted. i became what you are, what your friends are, what most of humanity is so busy being-only without the trimmings. i didnt go around spouting book reviews to hide my emptiness of judgement-i had no judgement. i didnt borrwo designs to hide my creative impotence-i created nothing. i didint say that equality is a noble conception and unity the chief goal of mankind-i just agreed with everyody. u call it death, Peter? that kind of death-ive imposed it on you and on everyone around us. but you-you havent done that. people are comfortable with you, they like you, they enjoy your presence. youve spared them the blank death. because you’ve imposed it-on yourself.”
hey..
nice work by everyone of u………
i liked most of the quotes stated here……but this is the one i liked the best….
my favorite:
(Dean) “My dear fellow, who will let you?”
(Roark) “That’s not the point. The point is,WHO WILL STOP ME?”
i wrote the part in caps cos thats wat i liked abt this quote!
I read the fountainhead wayyy back when i was like 19 – the freshman year of college. For all those who liked it I recommend the first book of Ayn Rand – The Anthem. I found it better than the fountainhead overall.
I purchased The Fountainhead for all of my family and friends last Yule. Once I read it, I realized that few gifts would have the impact this book would.
My favourite quote is listed partially above, however in order to gain the full impact, it needs to be understood in context. When I was diagnosed with late-stage cancer at the beginning of this year, I had this quote (verbatim, in it’s entirety) printed, framed and placed above my bed:
“No, he thought, I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered–and that I loved it, *that* is the unanswered in my life. But I loved it.
“If it were true, that old legend about appearing before a supreme judge and naming one’s record, I would offer, with all my pride, not any act I committed, but one thing I have never done on this earth: that I never sought an outside sanction. I would stand and say: I am Gail Wynand, the man who has committed every crime except the foremost one: that of ascribing futility to the wonderful fact of existence and seeking justification beyond myself. This is my pride: that now, thinking of the end, I do not cry like all the men of my age: but what was the use and the meaning? *I* was the use and meaning, I, Gail Wynand. That I lived and that I acted.”
(from Part Four, chapter 5; pgs 549 – 550 in The Fountainhead [Centennial Edition])
I am trying for find a quote from The Fountainhead. I read the book 40 years ago and would like to recapture a quote by Dominique, I think, where she says that after reading a good book she incinerates it because she cannot stand the thought of sharing such great literature with such a mundane world. Any chance someone might point me to the exact quote. Thanks, Gary
“Every lonliness is a pinnacle.”
Toohey to Dominique.
gr8 book I’ve ever read! never will grow too old to revolt; possessing the immortal radiance of everlasting youthfulness!Absolutely quintessential book!
gary–
the quote goes like this
“i never pick up any book i’ve read and enjoyed again.” then she goes on to say that she once found a statue in a museum…
“i think i was in love with it alvah.”
“really? where is is? i should like to see something that you enjoy for once.” (alvah scarret)
“its broken”
“broken? a museum piece?!”
“i threw it down an elevator shaft…”
forgive me if its not perfect, that was all from memory, but i think its correct. (i’ve only read the book about 15 times!)
my favorite quote, above all, has been referenced here already. the one about the young man and his encounter with howard roark. that scene just knocks me out.
oh…and peter keating talking to dominique
“dominique, where is your ‘I’?”
“where is yours peter?”
Clash of egos, greatness in character unearthed.
I remember one quote
“Every loneliness is a pinnacle”
I read The Fountainhead over thirty years ago and Atlas Shrugged as well. Only now, after more than thirty years, am I finding the answers to my questions. I’ve read them and re-read them and others by Ayn Rand. If only Congress, the Senate and the candidates had read or would read, so many things would not have happened and would not be happening.
Some of the quotes came out in a conversation many years ago, and now, at last, I know what they mean. To the person that said them, wherever she may be now, “thank you” and we will never meet again.
I read the FOuntainhead for school and it thought it was a really good book. now im writing a paper on it and i came across this page while i was looking for quote ideas. i was wondering if you know what page the last quote you have on your page is from ( the quote where domonique was speaking to roark)
How can anyone forget this one?
Roark to Dominque
“You’d rather not hear it now? But I want you to hear it. We never need to say anything to each other when we’re together. This is for the time when we won’t be together. I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my
ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself and so you would not love me long. To say ’I love you’ one must know first how to say the ’I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would
give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless.”
Part 3 – Gail Wynand , Ch. 3
Wynand to Dominique
“…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”
I,m looking for a quote in “The Fountainhead” I can´t find.
I believe it´s Wynand talking to Dominique about how he does not feel small looking at the scyscrapers in NYC but that he would defend them with he´s body if anything threatened them.
/Markus
I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window – no, I don’t feel how small I am – but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.
I’m assuming that is the quote you were referring to.
This is for the time we wont be together: I Love you. As selfish as the fact that I exist. As selfish as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity , for the fuel of my body, for my survival. I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is the only way I can want you to love me. If you come to me now I would become your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want yourself — and so you would not love me long. To say ‘ I love you’ one must know first how to say ‘I.’ The kind of surrender I would have from you now would give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it. I’d destroy you.
Howard Roark Laughed.
And now the Masterpiece:
Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man’s spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.
“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.
“But 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 an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.
“The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
“The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
“Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.
“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
“The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.
“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
“Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.
“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.
“Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.
“Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.
“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.
“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.
“The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.
“Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.
“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.
“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.
“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.
“A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
“Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
“But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.
“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.
“The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.
“The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.
“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off!
“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.
“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.
“I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.
“Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.
“I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.
“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.
“I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.
“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.
“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.
“It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.
“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.
“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.
“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world.
“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.
“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.
“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.
NO NO NO! Beware Ayn Rand, she is Nietzhe without compassion! Her appeal is to the lonely impotent adolescent inside us, wishing that we could live lives of justified selfishness. Read the history of Ayn Rand’s great affair to see how she acted (like a cult leader) in real life. For a quote read the rape scene: no, guys, women don’t want to be taken forcibly to sort them out, you’re just dreaming!
The total passion for the total height.
How about Keating’s statement begging Rourke to design the Cortlandt Homes project for him:
“I need a prestige I don’t deserve for an achievement I didn’t accomplish to save a name I haven’t earned the right to bear.”
Hands down, my favorite is when Howard Roark and Gail Wynand are talking on Gail’s boat. Roark says:
“Gail, if this boat were sinking, I’d give my life to save you. Not
because it’s any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons
and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn’t and
wouldn’t live for you.”
“Peter Keating had never felt the need to formulate abstract convictions. But he had a working substitute. ‘A thing is not high if one can reach it; it is not great if one can reason about it; it is not deep if one can see its bottom.’ – this had always been his credo, unstated and unquestioned. This spared him any attempt to reach, reason, or see; and it cast a nice reflection of scorn on those who made the attempt.”
“A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose.”
I adored the fountainhead, and the book was really eye-opening and inspiring. Roark’s soliloquies are SO amazing
But it IS important not to get too caught up in Objectivism, otherwise you start feeling that every person you meet is a lesser being and your friends start thinking you’re crazy.
A great follow-up book to read after Fountainhead, Anthem, and Atlas Shrugged is Old School by Tobias Wolff, it really helped me understand why although Fountainhead and Objectivism is truly thought provoking and fascinating, it isn’t the philosophy to end all philosophies: Ayn Rand was an incredibly twisted woman and Objectivism is merely one facet on the diamond of self discovery.
I don’t know about “a twisted woman,” and I don’t know about “cult leader.” I do know that truth is truth no matter who speaks it. I also agree with the “one facet on the diamond to self-discovery.” Very well put. As long as you don’t take anything as dogma (there is such a thing as a Fountainhead-thumper), you’ll do fine.
One of my favorite quotes comes from the most evil bastard in the book:
“Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man’s first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought. But we’ll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles.” – Ellsworth M. Toohey, Part IV, Chapter XIV
“and of course, a quest for self-respect is proof of its lack.”
- Wynand to Dominique
I’d add a bunch more on here, but i have an essay due tomorrow which takes precedence.
I must say, ayone i know who’s read The Fountainhead either LOVED IT or HATED IT. i personally LOVE IT and will probably read it once a year for the rest of my life. every time I read it I learn something new about either myself or the world.
i WONDER WHY WERE THESE NOT QUOTED:
” Ones does not stress total ignorance, if…one were in total ignorance of it”
+
” Men may differ in their virtues,if any, but they are alike in their vices”
+
” I thought you are my chain to this world, You have become my defense instead!!!”
i’m only fifteen…i was given The Fountainhead as a gift. i’m still reading it and i find that i can’t put it down. i’m amazed at how beautiful the story is played out. i was told not to read it b/c Ayn Rand was a philisophical writer, that it would bore me. when in fact it has done the complete opposite so far. i have absolutely loved it and it has inspired me a great deal to read of such interesting charcaters with views that blow my mind.
http://rgvarma.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5187B91811914FB4!13533.entry?ccr=3674#comment
The exact opposite of this views and how people applaud them
You Know what, though I am really glad to read about the quotes all of you have liked and the fact that they were all the ones which I liked too, but sometimes, just sometimes in my course of reading the book, I too felt like Dominique- about not liking the fact that so many people have read this book, that the eyes of so many have seen the same lines. Though now I don’t feel any such thing (I am on part four- Howard Roark).
Anyway there was this one line which caught me off guard:
” Until you stop hating all this, stop being afraid of it, learn not to notice it.”
this was when Dominique meets Roark in Clayton and is about to leave.
My personal favourite:
“But to be beaten by the man who has always stood as the particular example of mediocrity in his eyes, to start by the side of this mediocrity and to watch it shoot up, while he struggles and gets nothing but a boot in his face, to see the mediocrity snatch from him, one after another, the chances he’d give his life for, to see the mediocrity worshipped, to miss the place he wants and to see the mediocrity enshrined upon it, to lose, to be sacrificed, to be ignored, to be beaten, beaten, beaten–not by a greater genius, not by a god, but by a Peter Keating–well, my little amateur, do you think the Spanish Inquisition ever thought of a torture to equal this?”
If you haven’t already done it …. read Atlas Shrugged …. equally outstanding
“What do you want?” snapped Cameron. “I should like to work for you,” said Roark quietly. The voice said: “I should like to work for you.” The tone of the voice said: “I’m going to work for you.”
“Are you?” said Cameron, not realizing that he answered the unpronounced sentence.
I’m not sure if anyone’s told you yet, but the quote you had cited as Peter Keating talking about Howard Roark achieving immortality was actually Steve Mallory talking to Dominique. I’ve read the book three times, and every time I read that quote (it may be my favorite) I always have to think about it for a while or else I probably wouldn’t have remembered. Anyway, I love the quotes you picked, they really showed the spirit of the book and the writing ability of Ayn Rand. I’m one of two people I know who actually love the book, so I’m glad that people still can appreciate a book like this.
“I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality. I don’t mean in the sense of fame and I don’t mean that he won’t die some day. But he’s living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard–one can imagine him existing forever.”
– Steven Mellory & not Peter Keating.
I’ve just finished reading The Fountainhead, and find myself obsessed with Howard Roark. As an artist, I was trained that classical-influenced photo-realistic painting/drawing is the only “acceptable” form of art. I however am not that type of artist, and Howard Roark has given me the courage to be what I am. I’m expecting, and I’m naming my son Roark.
Ellesworth Toohey had a really good quote I can’t really remember when or where he said it but it goes something like this:
“…had it all wrong…Divide and Conquer…Unite and rule”
Toohey makes a really good point. Can’t someone help me with this quote. I can’t find many Toohey quotes anywhere.
Here it comes Mace:
“My dear Peter, people go by so many erroneous assumptions. For instance, that old one–divide and conquer. Well, it has its applications. But it remained for our century to discover a much more potent formula. Unite and rule.”
“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 net is waiting, and we’re pushed into it by a single desire. You want a thing and it’s precious to you. Do you know who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can’t know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is ready, and you’re afraid of them all. And you cringe and you crawl and you beg and you accept them – just so they’ll let you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.”
I don’t know who you are, but I found your post looking for my favorite fountainhead quote of all time. This book changed my life and allowed me to find my soul.. I cannot even begin to explain what this book means to me. Finding this site makes me want to re-read the book for the 5th time…. and it puts me in the state I always end up being in after thinking about Howard Roark… there are so very few of these Roark characters left in the world… I’m just grateful to find a site like this, with other people understanding the true greatness of this book and what it does to your soul.. thank you….
I HATE THE FOUNTIANHEAD WITH A BURNING PASSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just finished this book an hour ago, and though I do not see Objectivism as something I would like to dedicate myself to, I feel that it makes many good points. I will certainly integrate some portions of this book into my life, simply because I already live some of them, and others because I see where I have been hypocritical, 2nd-handed, and dependent. Excellent book.
Hi. I am looking for the conversation between Roark and Wynand. Roark bends a branch and says:”This is the measure of a man.” Wynand replies:”His strength?” Roark says:”No, His work.” Well, its something like that…
Found it…“Look, Gail,” Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one flat closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. “Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That’s the meaning of life.”
“Your strength?”
“Your work.”’
I too feel like this is one of the greatest works i have ever read. The other being Atlas Shrugged. For all those who say that they hate Ayn Rand and her work, it is because you refuse to think. It is because you refuse to acknowledge. Look at the greatness of her characters. They are not great because of others. Greatness from others is not true greatness, only greatness from the self. Every time I am doubting in life and i read a quote or a page, I can feel myself coming back; my convictions. I only tell those who i think are like me, those who i know will understand, to read this amazing work because i know that it will give them the confidence to discover who they truly are in the world. The world is full of second handers and it is those second handers who do not understand. I refuse to allow myself to be a second hander. I refuse to allow those second handers to question my choices, thoughts and convictions. As the quote from Atlas Shrugged says “I am, therefore I’ll think.”