Quotes About Self-reliance

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

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

She fought like an animal. But she made no sound. She did not call for help. She heard the echoes of her blows in a gasp of his breath, and she knew that it was a gasp of pleasure.

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 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.

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

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

Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

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. I will have built Cortlandt.

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." "What if you found something you wanted?" "I won't find it. I won't choose to see it. It would be part of that lovely world of yours. I'd have to share it with all the rest of you—and I wouldn

So much is still to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!

Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me;

in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.

In the normal conditions of existence, man has to choose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible.

What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree, and to obey?

Todo aquel que se respeta no gusta de verse convertido en vaca lechera de la comunidad.

He was a man who had never accepted the creed that others had the right to stop him. He set his goal and moved toward it...

I, who do not accept the unearned, neither in values nor in guilt

Barre a un lado a esos místicos corrompidos por el odio, que se presentan como amigos de la humanidad y predican que la más alta virtud que un hombre puede practicar es considerar que su propia vida carece de valor.

I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

people who listen and don't give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers.

No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man—by the work and the judgment of your mind.

JURO POR MI VIDA Y MI AMOR POR ELLA, QUE JAMÁS VIVIRÉ PARA NADIE, NI EXIGIRÉ QUE NADIE VIVA PARA MÍ.