Quotes About Individualism

I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.

it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.

A basic premise is an absolute that permits no co-operation with its antithesis and tolerates no tolerance.

I do not care to be admired by anyone's heart—only by someone's head.

The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.

To place nothing—nothing—above the verdict of my own mind.

For the We must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within a man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and an unspeakable lie.

The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Dagny, how did you do it? How did you manage to remain unmangled?" "By holding to just one rule." "Which?" "To place nothing—nothing—above the verdict of my own mind." "You've taken some terrible beatings . . . maybe worse than I did . . . worse than any of us. . . . What held you through it?" "The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight.

If I can't, then that would make it an absolute and you said there aren't any absolutes." "That's different." "How is it different?" "It's the government." "You mean, there aren't any absolutes except the government?" "I mean, if they say it's important, then it is.

There's a particular kind of people I despise. Those who seek some higher purpose or 'universal goal', those who do not know what to live for, who moan that they 'must find themselves.' You hear it all around us. That seems to be the official bromide of our century. Every book you open. Every drooling self-confession. It seems to be the noble thing to confess. I think it would be the most shameful one.

If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property—let them come and get it." "But what sort of life have you chosen? To what purpose are you giving your mind?" "To the cause of my love." "Which is what?" "Justice.

John, the self-made man, self-made in every sense, out of nowhere, penniless, parentless, tie-less...but I've always thought of him as if he had come into the world like Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who sprang forth from Jupiter's head, fully grown and fully armed.

He and I had always felt as if we were fellow survivors from some vanishing age or land, in the gibbering swamp of mediocrity around us.

the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society [...] reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life; it reveals a mind from which the reality of a human being has been wiped out

Your self is your mind; renounce it and you become a chunk of meat ready for any cannibal to swallow.

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him.

Howard, everything you've done in your life is wrong according to the stated ideals of mankind. And here you are. And somehow it seems a huge joke on the whole world.

Si, antes de emprender alguna acción, tienes que obtener el permiso de la sociedad, no eres libre, te sea concedido ese permiso o no. Solamente un esclavo actúa bajo permiso. Un permiso no es un derecho.

In a world that proclaims the non-existence of the mind, the moral righteousness of rule by brute force, the penalizing of the competent in favor of the incompetent, the sacrifice of the best to the worst - in such a world, the best have to turn against society and have to become its deadliest enemies.

I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written—and published—is my proof that they do.

I had felt no hatred in all the years when they rejected me. If my work was new, I had to give them time to learn, if I took pride in being first to break a trail to a height of my own, I had no right to complain if others were slow to follow.

Whatever it was that others sought in life, their right to what they now felt was all the two of them wished to find.

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