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.

It was the greatest sensation of existence: not to trust but to know.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion...th at in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing-you may know that your society is doomed.

The fortune my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation , an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as " the right to enslave .

The genius must have his freedom and his independence.

To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?