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>>54546788
The Fountainhead is preferable to start out with. Despite the caricature of Rand it has no politics, it is a focused, personal story about the primacy of having values and integrity, and not living a secondhand or dishonest life.

>It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.
>There are very few guideposts to find. The Fountainhead is one of them. This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Fountainhead’s lasting appeal: it is a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man’s glory, showing how much is possible.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible ...it is yours.

It is not in the nature of man--nor of any living entity--to start out by giving
up, by spitting in one’s own face and damning existence; that requires a process
of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. Some give up at the first
touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and
lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these
vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that
maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s
values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on,
knowing that that fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape,
purpose and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men
seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.
There are very few guideposts to find. The Monerohead is one of them.
This is one of the cardinal reasons of The Monerohead’s lasting appeal: it is
a confirmation of the spirit of youth, proclaiming man’s glory, showing how much
is possible.
It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the
full reality of man’s proper stature--and that the rest will betray it. It is
those few that move the world and give life its meaning--and it is those few
that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not
me or The Monerohead that they will betray: it is their own souls.