[b]Ayn Rand from The Fountainhead
When I listen to a symphony I love, I don’t get from it what the composer got. His ‘Yes’ was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience.[/b]
But then of course there’s my take on this.
Roark smiled, Gail, if this boat were sinking, I’d give my life to save you. Not because it’s any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn’t and wouldn’t live for you.
Really, he thought, can the true Objectivist die for someone?
You’ll get everything society can give a man. You’ll keep all the money. You’ll take any fame or honor anyone might want to grant. You’ll accept such gratitude as the tenants might feel. And I - I’ll take what nobody can give a man, except himself. I will have built Cortlandt.
The part before he blows it up.
I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.
Let’s file this one [knowing Alvah] under, “in one ear and out the other”.
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.
Trust me: Only her rendition of if. Indeed, try being independent of that.
The age of the skyscraper is gone. This is the age of the housing project. Which is always a prelude to the age of the cave.
Remember when that might actually have been true?