|
|
|
*The world has no
painful surprise for him [the ideal man], since he has accepted long
ago just what he is to expect from the world.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
Notes for
The Fountainhead, 1943
|
|
|
*[T]he only direct,
introspective knowledge of man anyone possesses is of himself.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
"Introduction to Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition", May, 1968
|
|
|
*You know, it's such a
peculiar thing-our idea of mankind in general. We all have a sort of
vague, glowing picture when we say that, something solemn, big and
important. But actually all we know of it is the people we meet in
our lifetime. Look at them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn
about? There's nothing but housewives haggling at pushcarts, drooling
brats who write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes.
Or their spiritual equivalent.
|
|
|
-Dominique Francon, a character in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part 1 : Peter Keating, Ch. 12
|
|
|
*Keating leaned back with
a sense of warmth and well-being. He liked this book. It had made the
routine of his Sunday morning breakfast a profound spiritual experience;
he was certain that it was profound, because he didn't understand it.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Two, "Ellsworth M. Toohey"
Chapter 4
|
|
|
*Aunt Adeline was a tall,
capable woman to whom the word "horse" clung in conjunction with the words
"sense" and "face."
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Two : Ellsworth M. Toohey, Ch. 9
|
|
|
*And what, incidentally, do
you think integrity is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your neighbor's
pocket? No, it's not as easy as that. If that were all, I'd say that
ninety-five percent of humanity were honest, upright men. Only, as you can
see, they aren't. Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.
|
|
|
-Kent Lansing, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Two : Ellsworth M. Toohey, Ch. 10
|
|
|
*I mean that groups of men
are vacuums. Great big empty nothings. They say we can't visualize a total
nothing. Hell, sit at any committee meeting. The point is only who chooses
to fill that nothing.
|
|
|
-Kent Lansing, a character in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Two, "Ellsworth M. Toohey", Ch. 10
|
|
|
*When facing society, the
man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most,
has the least to say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and the
reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced-since no
speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to
pass judgement on a man than an idea. Though how in hell one passes
judgement on a man without considering the content of his brain is more
than I'll ever understand.
|
|
|
-Kent Lansing, a character in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Two, "Ellsworth M. Toohey", Ch. 10
|
|
|
*[A] quest for self-
respect is proof of its lack.
|
|
|
-Gail Wynand, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Three : Gail Wynand, Ch. 3
|
|
|
*She thought that they had
not greeted each other and that it was right. This was not a reunion, but
just one moment out of something that had never been interrupted. She
thought how strange it would be if she ever said "Hello" to him; one did
not greet oneself each morning.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Three : Gail Wynand, Ch. 5
|
|
|
*I like to see a man
standing at the foot of a skyscraper. It makes him no bigger than an ant-
isn't that the correct bromide for the occasion? The God-damn fools! It's
man who made it-the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. It doesn't
dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. It reveals his true
dimensions to the world. What we love about these buildings. . .is the
creative faculty, the heroic in man.
|
|
|
-Gail Wynand, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Pt. Three, "Gail Wynand", Ch. 9
|
|
|
*To say 'I love
you' one must first know how to say the 'I.'
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
(cf. LOVE : Ortega y Gasset)
|
|
|
*We live in our minds, and
existence is the attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state
it in gesture and form.
|
|
|
-Howard Roark, the hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 2
|
|
|
*What you feel in the presence
of a thing you admire is just one word-'Yes.' The affirmation, the acceptance,
the sign of admission. And that 'Yes' is more than an answer to one thing,
it's a kind of 'Amen' to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the
thought that created it, to yourself for being able to see it.
|
|
|
-Howard Roark, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Pt. Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 4
|
|
|
*You know how people long to
be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them,
they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of
themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict-and they call it growth.
At the end there's nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there
had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on
an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held
for a single moment?
|
|
|
-Steven Mallory, a character in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Three : Gail Wynand, Ch. 4
|
|
|
*By what conceivable right
can anyone demand that a human being exist for anything but his own joy?
|
|
|
-Gail Wynand, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 5
|
|
|
*He [Gail Wynand] loved the
wheel of a car as he loved his desk in the office of the Banner: both
gave him the same sense of a dangerous monster let loose under the expert
direction of his fingers.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark"
Ch. 5
|
|
|
*No, he thought, I 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. But
I loved it.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark"
Ch. 5
|
|
|
*Eight months ago Lancelot
Clokey had stood with a manuscript in his hand before Ellsworth Toohey. . .
not believing it when Toohey told him that his book would top the
best-seller list. But two hundred thousand copies sold had made it
impossible for Clokey ever to recognize any truth again in any form.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Three, "Gail Wynand"
Chapter 6
|
|
|
*The young man hoped he
would not have to die.
Not if the earth could look like this, he thought. Not if he could hear
the hope and the promise like a voice, with leaves, tree trunks and rocks
instead of words. But he knew that the earth looked like this only because
he had seen no sign of men for hours; he was alone, riding his bicycle down
a forgotten trail through the hills of Pennsylvania where he had never been
before, where he could feel the fresh wonder of an untouched world.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 1
|
|
|
*[H]ow dull it is to discuss
things with minds devoted to the obvious.
|
|
|
-Ellsworth M. Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 7
|
|
|
*'Howard, I . . . how can
I try to thank you, even for . . .'
'Don't thank me. If I do it, I'll have my own purpose. I'll expect to
gain as much as you will. Probably more. Just remember that I don't do
hings on any other terms."
|
|
|
-Peter Keating and the hero Howard Roark,
in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 8
|
|
|
*Your ego is the strictest
judge.
|
|
|
-Gail Wynand, a hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 11
|
|
|
*A truly selfish man
cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it.
|
|
|
-Howard Roark, the hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 11
|
|
|
*Man's first frown is the
first touch of God on his forehead.
|
|
|
-Ellsworth M. Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 14
|
|
|
*If you get caught at some
crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense---
you're ready for him. You tell him that there's something above sense. That
here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe.
Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you
wish, whenever you need it. You've got him. Can you rule a thinking man?
We don't want any thinking men.
|
|
|
-Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part 4 : Howard Roark, Ch. 14
|
|
|
*Yet the test should be
so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of
sacrifice--- run.
|
|
|
-Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in Ayn
Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 14
(Toohey is a villain. However, his villainy stems from the fact that while he
knows the best way for men to live, he consciously preaches the
opposite philosophy, for his immorally selfish benefit. Thus, even
though it was put into the words of a villain, Rand would have agreed with
the quote.)
|
|
|
*It stands to reason that
where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings.
Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks
to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the
master. But if you ever hear a man telling you that you must be happy,
that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself---that
will be the man who's not after your soul.
|
|
|
-Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in
Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 14
(See above.)
|
|
|
*The pressure disappeared
with the first word he put on paper. He thought---while his hand moved
rapidly---what power there was in words; later, for those who heard them,
but first for the one who found them; a healing power, a solution, like
the breaking of a barrier. He thought, perhaps the basic secret the
scientists have never discovered, the first fount of life, is that which
happens when a thought takes shape in words.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 15
|
|
|
*Now observe the results
of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country.
The noblest in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement,
greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on
selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It
was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness.
Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the
results. Look into your own conscience.
|
|
|
-Howard Roark, the hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Pt. Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 18
|
|
|
*An agreement reached by
a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many
individual thoughts.
|
|
|
-Howard Roark, the hero in Ayn Rand's
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four, "Howard Roark", Ch. 18
|
|
|
*[A] stranger's face is
an unapproached potentiality, to be opened if one makes the choice and
effort.
|
|
|
-Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead, 1943
Part Four : Howard Roark, Ch. 19
|
|
|
Back
to Rand's Main Page
Home
