Quotes about Independence

You don't care what others think - which might be understandable. But you don't care even to make them think as you do? No. But that's...that's monstrous. Is it? Probably. I couldn't say.

There is only one power that determines the course of history, just as it determines the course of every individual life: the power of man's rational faculty—the power of ideas.

The egotist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him.

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.

A thinking child cannot conform. Thought does not bow to authority.

HOWARD ROARK LAUGHED. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water. The water seemed immovable, the stone flowing. The stone had the stillness of one brief moment in battle when thrust meets thrust and the currents are held in a pause more dynamic than motion. The stone glowed, wet with sunrays.

And, after all, you've got to live." "Not that way," said Roark.

One who thinks for himself is a threat to his enemies, a refuge to his acquaintances, a prize to his friends, and a gift to the world.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

I love acting, and I'm not going to determine what I do based on what I fear other people might think. I do what I want to do.

while Mr. Edwards was in the town, and they had no other minister to preach to them, they carried on public worship among themselves, and without any preaching, rather than invite him.