Overall
Another personal favorite by Ayn Rand! All of it, the battle for individualism, creation, productivity, high standards, integrity, and moral values.
In this novel, the hero is Howard Roark, and architect who fights against the old and outdated standards that people still believe in. It is an intellectual battle against collectivism, dogma, and tradition.
Major Insights
Another personal favorite by Ayn Rand! All of it, the battle for individualism, creation, productivity, high standards, integrity, and moral values.
In this novel, the hero is Howard Roark, and architect who fights against the old and outdated standards that people still believe in. It is an intellectual battle against collectivism, dogma, and tradition.
Major Insights
- Always stand by what you believe in.
- Protect yourself as an individual. Think for yourself and allow others to think for themselves too.
- Never give up on your ideas because of dogma or tradition.
- Creative and productive work is one of the highest achievements of life.
- It's better to have one good friend who shares your values and beliefs than thousands who don't understand why they are your friends.
- Nobody can give or kill your self-respect.
Favorite Quotes (too many to put them all here)
- “Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building that way, when and if you are an architect?”
“Yes.”
“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?” -HR
- “I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.” - HR
- “To say "I love you" one must know first how to say the "I".” -HR
- “The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.”
- “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?” -HR
- “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.” -HR
- “Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.” -HR
- “Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.” -HR
- “Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.” -DF
- “Self-sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed.” -HR
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