When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head.

Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.

Individualism regards man-every man-as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.

The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

There's something I want you to know,' said Cherryl, her voice taut and harsh, 'so that there won't be any pretending about it. I'm not going to put on the sweet relative act. I know what you've done to Jim and how you've made him miserable all his life. I'm going to protect him against you. I'll put you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart. I'm the woman in this family now.' 'That's quite all right,' said Dagny. 'I'm the man.

Worry is a waste of emotional reserve".

Whenever anyone accuses some person of being 'unfeeling,' he means that that person is just.