Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind. Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it.

I loathe your ideals because I know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved.

I think, therefore I'll think.

If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn't you make the most of it?

About Mike the construction worker, friend of Roark: "He worshipped expertness of any kind. He loved his work passionately and had no tolerance for anything save for other single-track devotions. He was a master in his own filed and felt no sympathy except for mastery. His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter."

The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual; everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort.