"Anthem" by Ayn Rand

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• "It is a fearful word, alone."
• "Nothing matters save the work, our secret, our evil, our precious work."
• "all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together"
• "This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick."
• "The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them."
• "So much is still to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!"

• "But then came the day when the sky turned white, as if the sun had burst and spread its flame in the air, and the fields lay still without breath, and the dust of the road was white in the glow."
• "eyes, so hard and scornful to the world, were looking at us as if they would obey any word we might speak."
• "We are old now, yet we were young this morning"
• "So we walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty."
• "The forest seemed to welcome us. We went on, without thought, without care, with nothing to feel save the song of our body."
• "let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy between us. Give us your hand. Look ahead. It is our own world, Golden One, a strange, unknown world, but our own."
• "We looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us"
• "I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning."
• "It is my mind which thinks, and the judgment of my mind is the only searchlight that can find the truth. It is my will which chooses, and the choice of my will is the only edict I must respect."
• "Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me"
• "a speck of dust lost in eternity"
• "My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose."
• "I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom."
• "I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet."
• "I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned."
• "in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled"
• "and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it"
• "It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages."
• "What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me?"
• "This god, this one word: "I."
• "I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him."
• "He will be taught to say "I" and to bear the pride of it."
• "There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men."
• "At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right."
• "Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on. Man, not men."
• "The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO"