“Never ask people about your work.”

“Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?”

“That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: 'Is this true?' They ask: 'Is this what others think is true?' Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you don't work through another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life.”

“She had learned, in the slums of her childhood, that honest people were never touchy about the matter of being trusted.”

“Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.”

“The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.”

“I'm not asking you to do your best. I'm asking you to do your job." -Dagny Taggart”