Author of quotes: Ayn Rand

Short skirts are the apogee of female grace, and female elegance is the highest of arts.

Short skirts are the apogee of female grace, and female elegance is the highest of arts.

There is no shoddy job, there are only shoddy people who are not satisfied with any job.

He liked to watch the emotions of people; they were like red lanterns hung along the dark maze of human personality, marking vulnerable points.

Now he could forgive anything and anyone, because happiness ennobles.

He thought that people were so lacking in joy and thirsting for the slightest manifestation of it, so that even for a moment they could free themselves from the dark burden of suffering, which seemed to him, who had fully exhausted this thirst, so inexplicable and unnecessary. He never understood why people should be unhappy.

She would have considered it an honor to oppose herself to a strong opponent and challenge her superiority in a merciless duel, but instead she had to struggle with dullness, mediocrity and a complete lack of professionalism. Like a huge lump of cotton wool, soft and shapeless, which could not offer the slightest resistance to anyone or anything, an insurmountable obstacle stood in her way.

Not to possess, but only to surrender; not to act, but only to react; not create, but admire. Without that, I can't go any further, Dagny thought. Without joy, we are like a car without fuel.

I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think about the fire that a person holds in their hands. Fire, this powerful, dangerous force that a person has tamed and holds at his fingertips. I often think about those minutes when a person sits all alone, looks at the smoke of his cigarette and thinks. I have often asked myself what great accomplishments have grown out of such minutes. When a person thinks, a spark of living fire flares up in his consciousness, and at such moments the light of a smoking cigarette is, as it were, a reflection of his personality.

What do we need to understand to feel like Atlanteans? That you can't live a borrowed life, borrowed values. That you can and should change yourself, but never change yourself. That it is impossible to live for the sake of others or to demand that others live for you. That man is created for happiness, but one cannot be happy, neither guided by other people's ideas about happiness, nor at the expense of the unhappiness of others, nor at the expense of undeserved goods. You need to be responsible for your actions and their consequences. It is impossible to oppose morality and life, spiritual and material.

You have never suffered, - said a deathly look, - you have never felt anything, because to feel is only to suffer, there is no joy, there is only suffering and the absence of suffering, only suffering and zero, when you feel nothing, and I suffer , writhing from suffering - this is my purity, my virtue, and you do not writhe, do not complain. You must save me from suffering, cut up your insensitive body in order to patch mine, your cold soul, to rid mine of feelings, and we will reach the highest ideal, triumph over life, zero.

She used to eagerly await any change in her life; now the passive stranger who took her place was like all the sad people around, people who called themselves mature just because they did not try to think or desire.

She suddenly realized the incredible: this man is guilty, knows this and wants to justify himself by awakening the feeling of guilt in his victim.

If I were to indulge in vain regrets that my mistake destroyed my past, it would be the greatest betrayal, the utter bankruptcy of this truth. But if the love of truth remains my last asset, then the more I have lost, the more I can be proud of the price paid for such love. Then the wreckage of the past will not be a burial hill above me, but a peak that I climbed to gain a wider view.