Quotes About Independence

I do not wish to work in a world that regards me as a slave.

Oh, but I am quite resigned to taking second place in the shadow of my husband. I am humbly aware that the wife of a great man has to be contented with reflected glory - don't you think so Miss Taggart? No, said Dagny, I don't.

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?

I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

Any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return.

Get the hell out of my way! Said by John Galt as the leaders of the country tried to make him become their dictator.

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.

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.

The crowd had stared at him and given up angrily, finding no satisfaction. He did not look crushed and he did not look defiant. He looked impersonal and calm. He was not like a public figure in a public place; he was like a man alone in his own room, listening to the radio.

My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish . I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

No action could be lower or more futile than for one person to throw upon another the burden of his abdication of choice.

What kind of a tragedy did you have in your childhood? Why, none at all. I had a wonderful childhood. Free and peaceful and not bothered too much by anybody. Well, yes, I did feel bored very often. But I'm used to that.

A thinking child cannot conform. Thought does not bow to authority.

Do you know what she did today? He leaned confidentially across the table, pointing at the dishes in the sink. She went to the market and left all the breakfast dishes there and said she'd do them later. I know what she wanted. She expected me to do them. Well, I'll fool her. I'll leave them just where they are.

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

Dagny, why is it that most women would never admit that, but you do?" "Because they're never sure that they ought to be wanted. I am." "I do admire self-confidence." "Self-confidence was only one part of what I said, Hank." "What's the whole?" "Confidence of my value—and yours.

To be free, a man must be free from his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.

This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

So long as road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!

Yet no penny of his wealth had been obtained by force or fraud; he was guilty of nothing, except that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his.

Those who wish to deal with me, must do so on my terms or not at all. I do not make terms with incompetence.

They say that it's hard for men to agree. You'd be surprised how easy it is—when both parties hold as their moral absolute that neither exists for the sake of the other and that reason is their only means of trade.