Quotes from Atlas Shrugged

PROMPT

RESPONSE

Here are some quotes related to the prompt, from the epic work Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.

Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.

He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience — or to fake — a sense of self-esteem.

The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer — because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises — because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him.

Do you still need proof that I’m always waiting for you?” she asked, leaning obediently back in her chair; her voice was neither tender nor pleading, but bright and mocking. 
“Dagny, why is it that most women would never admit that, but you do?” 
“Because they’re never sure that they ought to be wanted. I am.” 
“I do admire self-confidence.” 
“Self-confidence was only one part of what I said, Hank.” 
“What’s the whole?” 
“Confidence of my value — and yours.” 
He glanced at her as if catching the spark of a sudden thought, and she laughed adding, “I wouldn’t be sure of holding a man like Orren Boyle, for instance. He wouldn’t want me at all. You would.” 
“Are you saying,” he asked slowly, “that I rose in your estimation when you found that I wanted you?” 
“Of course.” 
“That’s not the reaction of most people of being wanted.” 
“It isn’t.” 
“Most people feel that they rise in their own eyes, if others want them.” 
“I feel that others live up to me, if they want me. And that is the way you feel, too, Hank, about yourself — whether you admit it or not.”