Quotes about Independence
She caught herself thinking: She's functioning well in an emergency, I'll be all right with her—and realized that she was thinking of herself.
— Ayn Rand
Why, child, such things are to be decided only by you and my son.
— Ayn Rand
There are only individual minds and individual achievements—and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.
— Ayn Rand
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. "I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.
— Ayn Rand
Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority.
— Ayn Rand
Thinking is something one doesn't borrow or pawn.
— Ayn Rand
Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." "But I don't think of you." Toohey
— Ayn Rand
The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide—as, I think, he will.
— Ayn Rand
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 lived for himself.
— Ayn Rand
Have you always liked being Howard Roark?" Roark smiled. The smile was amused, astonished, involuntarily contemptuous.
— Ayn Rand
Did it ever occur to you that I have a life to live - in my spare time? The Soviet State recognizes no life but that of a social class.
— Ayn Rand
A nation that can't control its energy sources can't control its future.
— Barack Obama