The Fountainhead Quotes

“What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word—‘Yes.’ The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“She had never done these things before; she did them expertly. She had a capacity for action, a competence that clashed incongruously with her appearance.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I know, it looks pure and beautiful to you now, at your great old age of twenty-two. But do you know what it means? Thirty years of a lost cause, that sounds beautiful, doesn't it? But do you know how many days there are in thirty years? Do you know what happens in those days?... I want you to know what's in store for you. There will be days when you'll look at your hands and you'll want to take something and smash every bone in them, because they'll be taunting you with what they could do, if you found a chance for them to do it, and you can't find that chance, and you can't bear your living body because it has failed those hands somewhere.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“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.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I'm going to die," he said aloud--and yawned. He felt no relief, no despair, no fear. The moment of his end would not grant him even the dignity of seriousness. It was an anonymous moment; a few minutes ago, he had held a toothbrush in that hand; now he held a gun with the same casual indifference.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Don’t you know that most people take most things because that’s what’s given them, and they have no opinion whatever? Do you wish to be guided by what they expect you to think they think or by your own judgment?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“We are the guardians of a great human function. Perhaps of the greatest function among the endeavors of man. We have achieved much and we have erred often. But we are willing in all humility to make way for our heirs. We are only men and we are only seekers. But we seek for truth with the best there is in our hearts. We seek with what there is of the sublime granted to the race of men. It is a great quest.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Why is it so important - what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right - so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic - and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word—‘Yes.’ The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Keating stood still, because he understood for the first time what it was that artists spoke about when they spoke of beauty.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the unreasonable?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Who gave you the right to say all this?"

"You did."

"Well, go on."

"Do you wish the rest?"

"Go on."

"I think it hurts you to know that you've made me suffer. You wish you hadn't. And yet there's something that frightens you more. The knowledge that I haven't suffered at all."

"Go on."

"The knowledge that I'm neither kind nor generous now, but simply indifferent. It frightens you, because you know that things like the Stoddard Temple always require payment--and you see that I'm not paying for it. You were astonished that I accepted this commission. Do you think my acceptance required courage? You needed far greater courage to hire me. You see, this is what I think of the Stoddard Temple. I'm through with it. You're not.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“If lightning strikes a rotten tree and it collapses, it’s not the fault of the lightning.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“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, The Fountainhead

“The unrecognized genius—that’s an old story. Have you ever thought of a much worse one—the genius recognized too well? ... 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?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“What are you really seeking?'
'Freedom – to want nothing, to expect nothing, to depend on nothing.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“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.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“If you want my advice, Peter,” he said at last, “you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“She said it quite correctly; there was nothing offensive in the quiet politeness of her voice; but following his high note of enthusiasm, her voice struck a tone that seemed flat and deadly in its indifference—as if the two sounds mingled into an audible counterpoint around the melodic thread of her contempt.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Dominique, it’s abnormal to feel so strongly about anything." “That’s the only way I can feel. Or not at all.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“She saw the faces streaming past her, the faces made alike by fear—fear as a common denominator, fear of themselves, fear of all and of one another, fear making them ready to pounce upon whatever was held sacred by any single one they met...She had kept herself clean and free in a single passion—to touch nothing. She had liked facing them in the streets, she had liked the impotence of their hatred, because she offered them nothing to be hurt.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the halfway, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“No gift is worth a damn, unless its the most precious thing you've got.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“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.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“I would have to think on a nice clean job. I don't want to think. Not their way. It will have to be their way, no matter where I go. I want a job where I won't have to think.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“It is against the sin of forgiveness that I wanted to warn you.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead