How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use,- As tho' to breathe were life!

God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love,- Deep as first love, and wild with all regret. Oh death in life, the days that are no more!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,- These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

I am a part of all that I have met.

To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.'

“Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.”

"Why is it so important--what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right--so long as it's not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth? Why is truth made a mere matter or arithmetic--and only of addition at that? Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be some reason. I don't know. I've never known it. I'd like to understand."

--Howard Roark