Quotes About Individualism

A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it.

A building has integrity, just as a man and just as seldom! It must be true to its own idea, have its own form, and serve its own purpose!.

It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature—and that the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning—and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls. AYN RAND New York, May 1968

You don't care what others think - which might be understandable. But you don't care even to make them think as you do? No. But that's...that's monstrous. Is it? Probably. I couldn't say.

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.

A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides.

Well, whose opinion did you take?" "I don't ask for opinions." "What do you go by?" "Judgment." "Well, whose judgment did you take?" "Mine." "But whom did you consult about it?" "Nobody.

Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, because there isn't any right at all in the world!

What subjectivism is in the realm of ethics, collectivism is in the realm of politics. Just as the notion that anything I do is right because I chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality--so the notion that anything society does is right because society chose to do it, is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles an the banishment of morality from social issues.

But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.

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?

The thinking child seeks equals; the conformist seeks protectors.

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

Those who start by saying: 'It is selfish to pursue your own wishes, you must sacrifice them to the wishes of others'—end up by saying: 'It is selfish to uphold your convictions, you must sacrifice them to the convictions of others.

When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights." No human rights can exist without property rights.

I think it's a worthy undertaking--to provide a decent apartment for a man who earns fifteen dollars a week. But not at the expense of other men. Not if it raises the taxes, raises all the other rents and makes the man who earns forty live in a rat hole.

A rational man never distorts or corrupts his own standards...in order to appeal to the irrationality, dishonesty or stupidity of others.

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?

Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.

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

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned

When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind - and it's roper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.

The egotist in 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.

You'll get everything society can give a man. You'll keep all the money. You'll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You'll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I—I'll take what nobody can give a man, except himself.