We have only two sources of information about the character of the people around us: we judge them by what they do and by what they say (particularly the first).

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity.

Defiance, not obedience, is the American's answer to overbearing authority.

An irresponsible person is a person who makes vague promises, then breaks his word, blames it on circumstances and expects other people to forgive it.

It's the hardest thing in the world - to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kinds of courage.

It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man's proper stature-and 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.

It's such a waste to be subtle and vicious with people who don't even know that you're being subtle and vicious