He wanted nothing, for the time being, except to understand .... Without advice, assistance or plan, he began reading an incongruous assortment of books; he would find some passage which he could not understand in one book, and he would get another on that subject .... There was no order in his reading; but there was order in what remained of it in his mind.
Ayn RandLove is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
Ayn RandIt was the only thing I ever really wanted. And thatโs the sin that canโt be forgiven--that I hadnโt done what I wanted. It feels so dirty and pointless and monstrous, as one feels about insanity, because thereโs no sense to it, no dignity, nothing but pain--and wasted pain...why do they always teach us that itโs easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? Itโs the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage.
Ayn RandI regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
Ayn RandYou don't build for the way people live, but for the way they should live. I don't write about people as they are, but as they could be and should be.
Ayn RandCapitalism demands the best of every man - his rationality - and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.
Ayn Rand