"It is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps also, is not to be lost---The noble soul has reverence for itself.This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history. Today, it is virtually non-existent. Yet this is the view with which---in various degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion---the best of mankind's youth start out in life. It is not even a view, for most them, but a foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable happiness.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.
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.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 they will betray: it is their own souls."~Ayn Rand (the last part of the introduction to The Fountainhead)Myspace Backgrounds
