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28 Quotes from Anthem by Ayn Rand that Matter

Anthem by Ayn Rand

“It is a sin to write this.” These are the opening lines to Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem which she wrote in 1938. I first read Anthem when I was in 8th grade after my grandmother sent me a copy of Atlas Shrugged and told me it would be one of the “great reads” of my life.

Since I wasn’t ready for a book that dense, I picked up Anthem after accidentally seeing it at a bookstore. The rest of the first paragraph had me hooked:

It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

I read it in one sitting on a Sunday morning in bed and it forever changed my life. In the book, the narrator re-invents electrical light in a world that has lost it, and for me, that’s what Anthem did. It taught me to take ideas seriously, about their supreme practical importance, and it gave me a vocabulary with which to describe something I’d felt all my life but couldn’t put into words: man, not men, as a heroic individual. I’d read other dystopian books before but Rand’s book was the first one that really hit me over the head with a deep understanding of the evils of collectivism. It’s stuck with me ever since.

I re-read Anthem for the third time on my recent flight to Tokyo and I’ve put together a list of my favorite quotes from the book as a followup to my article 32 Quotes from the Fountainhead that Matter.

If you haven’t read the, keep in mind that this could contain some spoilers and that quotes using the word “we” usually refer to the individual narrator, not to a group of people.

“We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen.”

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those years in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon us. So we fought against this curse. We tried to forget our lessons, but we always remembered. We tried not to understand what the Teachers taught, but we always understood it before the Teachers had spoken.

…we were guilty of the great Transgression of Preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others. We did not listen well to the history of all the Councils elected since the Great Rebirth. But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it.

…we are friends. This is an evil thing to say, for it is a great transgression, the great Transgression of Preference, to love any among men better than the others, since we must love all men and all men are our friends.

Illustration of Anthem 2

It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained to us, men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is good for all; and so all men must be happy. Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and never do they look one another in the eyes. The shoulders of our brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight. And a word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear.

It is not good to feel too much joy nor to be glad that our body lives. For we matter not and it must not matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our brothers will it. But we, Equality 7-2521, are glad to be living. If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.

There is some word, one single word which is not in the language of men, but which has been. And this is the Unspeakable Word, which no men may speak nor hear. But sometimes, and it is rare, sometimes, somewhere, one among men find that word. They find it upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient stones. But when they speak it they are put to death.

The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them.

No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. We have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not care.

We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone…

The power of the sky can be made to do men’s bidding. There are no limits to its secrets and its might, and it can be made to grant us anything if we but choose to ask.

If that which we have found is the corruption of solitude, then what can men wish for save corruption? If this is the great evil of being alone, then what is good and what is evil?

There is no life for men, save in useful toil for the good of their brothers. But we lived not, when we toiled for our brothers, we were only weary. There is no joy for men, save the joy shared with all their brothers. But the only things which taught us joy were the power created in our wires, and the Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone, they come from us alone, they bear no relation to our brothers, and they do not concern our brothers in any way.

My hands… My spirit… My sky… My forest… This earth of mine…. What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.

Illustration of Anthem 3

I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. It is my eyes which see, and the sight of my eyes grants beauty to the earth. It is my ears which hear, and the hearing of my ears gives its song to the world. It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect. Many words have been granted me, and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: “I will it!”

…my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of 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.

I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.

For the word “We” must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed first within man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man’s torture by men, and an unspeakable lie. The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.

What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree, and to obey?

I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

Illustration of Anthem 1

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: “I.”

There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.

At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled. But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.

Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men.

I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO.

Anthem is a short but powerful book. If you’re new to Ayn Rand and want to understand the sense of life that motivates her and what she’s fighting against, I think it’s probably your best book to read first. It has informed so much of how I view history, politics, and ethics today and I expect it can do the same for you.

Illustrations

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 365 day blogging challenge, anthem, ayn rand, quotes

26 Quotes from College Dropouts

Jay-Z was once asked in an interview if he feels insecure about not having a degree when he goes into a boardroom with a bunch of lawyers and MBAs. His response? “Never. They’ve lived a bunch of words but I’ve lived a bunch of life.”

As a dropout myself, I can understand this feeling. How could I possibly feel insecure about not having a degree that I never wanted and when I have 5+ more years of professional experience than anybody my age? For me, dropping out and starting my life early was a way to avoid the insecurity I see today in so many of my peers when they realize that they have no marketable skills that employers want and no knowledge of what they really want out of life.

More and more young people are beginning to realize this too. They see college as a 4-6 year postponement from the real world that costs far more than it’s worth and figure out ways to sidestep it entirely.

Over the last few years, I’ve been collecting quotes from these people about their decision to drop out of college and what they did instead. It’s helped me and I hope helps you make the decision to drop out and get started on your life.

People said I should do the responsible thing and go back to college. But I didn’t. I decided to irresponsibly chase my curiosity. I went down the rabbit hole, and I knew some people thought I was crazy. I was a college dropout, I was living with my parents and I was spending all my time coding, something that many believe a woman or a dropout cannot pursue as a career. Yet I didn’t care. I let go of what path I was supposed to be on. Later, I realized I had discovered my biggest passion. I did an unpaid engineering internship and eventually got my first job as a software engineer.
– Madison Kanna

This opportunity that is front of you—is it what you were going to school for in the first place? For me, that was it. I wasn’t going to stay in school for another year, graduate, and then cross my fingers and hope to get offered a similar job again. Fuck the marshmallow test—sometimes you have to take what’s offered to you right now…because later might not happen.
– Ryan Holiday

I didn’t come to college to be forced into useless classes nor did I come to become well-rounded. I came to college to study a particular field and differentiate myself in the job market. Even when I finally took some good classes, they were delivered in horribly inefficient ways. Anyone could learn this material from books and free online resources.

After 3 years of disappointment and thousands of dollars of debt accumulation, I was fed up. I stopped being afraid of stupid things and decided to break the mold. It was the best decision I have ever made.
– Nate Baker

I am so proud to say I’ve been offered jobs at very reputable companies that “ONLY HIRE COLLEGE GRADUATES,” as they are fond of advertising. I’ve been the only non-graduate in a workplace more than once, and it is not something I hide — it is something I sing from the rooftops. I have had many employers/interviewers say things like, “We don’t normally hire people without degrees, but you are interesting. At the age of 18, you didn’t feel the pressure to conform to what everyone else was doing, and that is the kind of maverick we want in our business.”
– Grace Slater

I realized that 95% of “education” was self-taught, either through personal projects or internships. I wanted to learn JavaScript, so I used online resources and learned at my own pace, on my own time, that too for FREE.
– Keshav Narula

When I dropped out of school, I was betting on myself. It was a good bet (one that surprised me, honestly). In less than 3 years, I’d worked as a Hollywood executive, researched for and promoted multiple NYT bestsellers, and was Director of Marketing for one of the most provocative companies on the planet. I had achieved more than I ever could have dreamed of — the scared, overwhelmed me of 19 could have never conceived of having done all that.
– Ryan Holiday

Looking back at my life, dropping out of college was the smartest decision I ever made. I left CU-Boulder as a sophomore against the better judgment of all my friends, family and classmates. At the time, they thought I was making a huge mistake. However, I was determined to prove them wrong, and this determination helped fuel my success.
– Logan Cheirotti

I’m not putting myself through five years of freaking college that’s expensive and to not have a guaranteed job at the end.
– Nathan Latka

In college I was learning things that didn’t help in anything I wanted to achieve. The classes were very boring, the people I was studying with didn’t seem incredible to me as to consider them colleagues or future members of my team. I was learning a lot of calculus, mechanics and electricity, but only theoretically because most universities don’t have the infrastructure to do practical classes on these subjects. And they don’t encourage you to think beyond passing the exams…I wanted to quit college.
– Carlos Sz

I was tired of losing money, time, and mental energy to college. I was more frustrated about the opportunities I was missing out on. I dropped out and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
– Casey McGoff

After I dropped out, I began running studio sessions and selling the beats I was making to pay for rent and food. I didn’t have anybody telling me to do it that way; one day I just realized that people sell beats, and I had tons of beats. I made a post on Facebook seeing who wanted to buy my beats, and I’ve been selling them ever since. I’ve basically spent every day since in my studio working as hard as I can to be comfortable. I still haven’t gotten around to paying back any student loans, but I can eat now, I can pay my rent, I have some great friends, and I’ve had the privilege of playing and working with some of my inspirations in the last few months.
– Riley Smithson

College, for me, was a lot like a bubble. I had a level of independence and responsibility, but I wasn’t yet part of the reality outside of school. Don’t get me wrong—college makes sense for those who feel happy there and want to be there. But for me, this bubble was suffocating. The longer I stayed, the more trapped I felt…This was a scary decision, but I finally made it, and once I did I felt I could breathe again.
– Anonymous

I remember one moment very vividly: I was in the bathroom when I heard a few of my classmates complaining about having to go to class and discussing how many more points they needed to pass the course. These were the same girls I had to shush as I gave my painstakingly prepared presentation on historical revisionism earlier that day. It hit me right then that in three years’ time, we would all have the same exact diploma, we would probably compete for the same jobs and no employer would care about how many all-nighters I had pulled to deliver quality term papers…

…the impact has been way more positive than negative. The random skills I’ve acquired have allowed me to travel the world, learn a third language and work with amazing tech startups in Asia doing a range of things from digital marketing to product development. I am also no longer embarrassed — and am maybe even proud — to admit I am a college dropout.
– Fabi Pina

[Read more…] about 26 Quotes from College Dropouts

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 365 day blogging challenge, college, dropping out, quotes

32 Quotes from The Fountainhead that Matter

Today is the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, the novel I’ve recommended more than any other. I first read it in high school (teachers warned me against it) while I was in England and its plot, theme, characters and the philosophy Rand integrates through it all has been the guiding influence in my life since.

Every decision I’ve made since, from the choice to leave college to my involvement in the Bitcoin Cash industry have their roots in The Fountainhead. And it’s all been for the best.

As I’ve said elsewhere, Rand “painted a picture of what was possible for the individual man that I desperately needed at that age of my life and which I still need today.” Having read Anthem, Philosophy: Who Needs It, and a good deal of her nonfiction essays first, I came into The Fountainhead expecting a great read but nothing truly new to me. I was wrong.

The novel dramatized a staggering number of philosophical, aesthetic, ethical and psychological issues for me that I could not have fully grasped through non-fiction alone. Things about my life and the people in it that didn’t make sense suddenly became clear. I learned to see in people the characters of Roark, Keating, and Toohey as well as dozens of the minor characters and to understand the conscious and subconscious premises they’ve accepted that guide their day-to-day actions. For a novel, it taught me more about the world than most nonfiction books I’ve read.

This post was originally intended to be a look at ALL of my highlights in my beaten paperback copy, but it turned out to be over 8,000 words, which is not a particularly reader friendly length for a quote roundup. In the future, I may do a giant roundup for fun, but for now, below are 32 of my favorite quotes from the novel that I’ve highlighted over the years under the broad categories of individualism, second-handedness, and creation.

I hope they inspire and enlighten you as they have done for me.

On Individualism

Dean: “Do you mean to tell me that you’re thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?”
Howard Roark: “Yes.”
Dean: “My dear fellow, who will let you?”
Howard Roark: “That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”
Chapter I, pp. 18-19 ; Howard Roark to the Dean

“‘Look,’ Roark said evenly, and pointed at the window. ‘Can you see the campus and the town? Do you see how many men are walking and living down there? Well, I don’t give a damn what any or all of them think about architecture — or about anything else, for that matter. Why should I consider what their grandfathers thought of it?”
Chapter I, pp. 18-19 ; Howard Roark to the Dean

“Rules?” said Roark. “Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it.”
Chapter I, pp. 18-19 ; Howard Roark to the Dean

“Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal. Why is it so important—what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right—so long as it’s not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic—and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don’t know. I’ve never known it. I’d like to understand.”
Chapter I, pp. 18-19 ; Howard Roark to the Dean

“But you see,” said Roark quietly, “I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.”
Chapter I, pp. 18-19 ; Howard Roark to the Dean

“If you want my advice, Peter, you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work. Don’t you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”
Chapter II, p. 28 ; Howard Roark to Peter Keating

“Heller, the fighter against compulsion, was baffled by Roark, a man so impervious to compulsion that he became a kind of compulsion himself, an ultimatum against things Heller could not define. Within a week, Heller knew that he had found the best friend he would ever have; and he knew that the friendship came from Roark’s fundamental indifference. In the deeper reality of Roark’s existence there was no consciousness of Heller, no need for Heller, no demand.”
Chapter XI, pp. 135 ; Austin Heller and Howard Roark

“A house can have integrity, just like a person,” said Roark, “and just as seldom…Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the need to impress. The determining motive for your house is in the house. The determining motive for others is in the audience.”
Chapter XI, pp. 136 ; Austin Heller and Howard Roark

“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?”
Chapter VIII, Part 4, pp. 576; Crony businessman

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.”
Chapter XVIII, Part 4, p. 743 ; Howard Roark

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.”
Chapter XVIII, Part 4, p. 738 ; Howard Roark

“After a while Mallory sat up. He looked at Roark and saw the calmest, kindest face — a face without a hint of pity. It did not look like the countenance of men who watch the agony of another with a secret pleasure, uplifted by the sight of a beggar who needs their compassion; it did not bear the cast of the hungry soul that feeds upon another’s humiliation.”
Chapter XI, Part 2, pp. 329 ; Howard Roark and Stephen Mallory

“Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.”
Chapter XVIII, p. 740 ; Howard Roark

On Second-handeness

“He’s an egomaniac devoid of all moral sense” –
– said the society woman dressing for a charity bazaar, who dared not contemplate what means of self-expression would be left to her and how she would impose her ostentation on her friends, if charity were not the all-excusing virtue –
– said the social worker who had found no aim in life and could generate no aim from within the sterility of his soul, but basked in virtue and held an unearned respect from all, by grace of his fingers on the wounds of others –
– said the novelist who had nothing to say if the subject of service and sacrifice were to be taken away from him, who sobbed in the hearing of attentive thousands that he loved them and loved them and would they please love him a little in return –
— said the lady columnist who had just bought a country mansion because she wrote so tenderly about the little people —
— said all the little people who wanted to hear of love, the great love, the unfastidious love, the love that embraced everything, forgave everything, and permitted everything—
— said every second-hander who could not exist except as a leech on the souls of others.”
Chapter X, Part 4, pp. 622; Howard Roark and the public

“It’s what I couldn’t understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live within others. They live second-hand. Look at Peter Keating….He’s paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he’s been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life? Greatness—in other peoples’ eyes. Fame, admiration, envy — all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There’s your actual selflessness. It’s his ego he’s betrayed and given up. But everyone calls him selfish. That’s the pattern of most people.”
Chapter IX, Part 4, pp. 605; Howard Roark on Peter Keating

“Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You’ve wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander’s delusion – prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can’t say about a single thing: ‘This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me’. Then he wonders why he’s unhappy.”
Chapter IX, Part 4, pp. 607; Howard Roark

“But Keating could never be the same when he had an audience, any audience. Something was gone. He did not know it, but he felt that Roark knew; Roark’s eyes made him uncomfortable and that made him angry.”
Chapter II, p. 34 ; Peter Keating and Howard Roark

“He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgement. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.”
Chapter II, p. 35 ; Peter Keating

“Mrs. Sanborn was the president of many charity organizations and this had given her an addiction to autocracy such as no other avocation could develop.”
Chapter XIII, pp. 167 ; Mrs. Sanborn

“I was thinking of people who say that happiness is impossible on earth. Look how hard they all try to find some joy in life. Look how they struggle for it. Why should any living creature exist in pain? By what conceivable right can anyone demand that a human being exist for anything but for his own joy? Every one of them wants it. Every part of him wants it. But they never find it. I wonder why. They whine and say they don’t understand the meaning of life. There’s a particular kind of people that I despise. Those who seek some sort of a higher purpose or ‘universal goal,’ who don’t know what to live for, who moan that they must ‘find themselves.’ You hear it all around us. That seems to be the official bromide of our century. Every book you open. Every drooling self-confession. It seems to be the noble thing to confess. I’d think it would be the most shameful one.”
Chapter IV, Part 4, pp. 551; Howard Roark

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.”
Chapter XVIII, p. 739 ; Howard Roark

“No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.”
Chapter XVIII, p. 738 ; Howard Roark

“The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.”
Chapter XVIII, P. 738 ; Howard Roark

“He tried to explain and to convince. He knew, while he spoke, that it was useless, because his words sounded if they were hitting a vacuum. There was no such person as Mrs. Wayne Wilmot; there was only a shell containing the opinions of her friends. the picture post cards she had seen, the novels of country squires she had read; it was this that he had to address, this immateriality which could not hear him or answer, deaf and impersonal like a wad of cotton.”
Chapter XIII, pp. 162 ; Howard Roark and Mrs. Wayne Wilmot

On Creation and Production

“People meant very little to Mike, but their performance a great deal. 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 field 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. He loved buildings. He despised, however, all architects.”
Chapter VII, p. 93 ; Mike Donnigan

“Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to be so damn serious? Can’t you ever do things without reason, just like everybody else? You’re so serious, so old. Everything’s important with you, everything’s great, significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. Can’t you ever be comfortable—and unimportant?”
“No.”
Chapter VII, p. 88 ; Peter Keating and Howard Roark

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The first airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”
Chapter XVIII, Part 4, pp. 736-737 ; Howard Roark

Henry Cameron: “Why did you’d decide to become an architect?”
Howard Roark: “I didn’t know it then. But it’s because I’ve never believed in God.”
Henry Cameron: “Come on, talk sense.”
Howard Roark: “Because I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them.”
Henry Cameron: “For whom?”
Howard Roark: “For myself.”
Chapter III, p. 49 ; Henry Cameron and Howard Roark

“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the
nature of achievement.”
Chapter XVIII, Part 4, p. 737 ;Howard Roark

“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window – no, I don’t feel how small I am – but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body.”
Chapter IV, Part 3, pp. 446 ; Howard Roark

“The house on the sketches had been designed not by Roark, but by the cliff on which it stood. It was as if the cliff had grown and completed itself and proclaimed the purpose for which it had been waiting.”
Chapter IX, p. 124 ; Howard Roark

“They were the sketches of building such as had never stood on the face of the earth. They were as the first houses built by the first man born, who had never heard of others building before him. There was nothing to be said of them, except that each structure was inevitably what it had to be. It was not as if the draftsman had sat over them, pondering laboriously, pricing together doors, windows and columns, as his whim dictated and as the books prescribed. It was as if the buildings had sprung from the earth and from some living force, complete, unalterably right. The hand that had made the sharp pencil lines still had much to learn. But not a line seemed superfluous, not a needed plane was missing. The structures were austere and simple, until one looked t them and realized what work, what complexity of method, what tension of thought had achieved the simplicity. No laws had dictated a single detail. The buildings were not Classical, they were not Gothic, they were not Renaissance. They were only Howard Roark.”
Chapter IX, p. 124 ; Howard Roark

The Fountainhead is one of those rare novels that gets better and better each time you read it. Even looking through my highlights, I discovered other passages that were highlight-worthy. I’ve read it four times and plan to do it again soon. If you haven’t read it yet, I guarantee it’s worth it.

Read it once through without taking notes —  just enjoy the plot. Then come back to it in a few months with a pen. You’ll find something interesting on almost every page.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 365 day blogging challenge, ayn rand, books, howard roark, objectivism, peter keating, quotes, the fountainhead

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Derek Magill (@derekmagill) is the Founder of Pathly, the VP of Operations at Glockstore.com, and the Director of the Nakamoto Studies Institute. He’s also the author of UTXO Wars.

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