My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Every loneliness is a pinnacle

Ferris: Are you going to be as impractical as that? Rearden: The evaluation of an action as practical, Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice. Ferris: Haven't you always placed your self-interest above all else? Rearden: That is what I am doing right now.

I am opposed to all forms of control. I am for an absolute, laissez-faire, free, unregulated economy.

Let no man posture as an advocate of peace if he proposes or supports any social system that initiates the use of force against individual men, in any form.

What do I "think" of President Reagan? The best answer to give would be: I don't think of him. And the more I see, the less I think.

I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'