# Quote — Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

> "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it."

- Author: [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md)
- Book: [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md)
- Page: 18
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Part_I_(_Peter_Keating_)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/here-are-my-rules

## More from this book

> "As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egoism and altruism. Egoism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. […] Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative."

p. 739 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/as-poles-of-good.md)

> The first movement of Roark's head was not to look at the city in the window, at the judge or at Dominique. He looked at Wynand. Wynand turned sharply and walked out. He was the first man to leave the courtroom.

p. 744 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/the-first-movement.md)

> The line of the ocean cut the sky. The ocean mounted as the city descended. She passed the pinnacles of bank buildings. She passed the crowns of courthouses. She rose above the spires of churches.
>
> Then there was only the ocean and the sky and the figure of Howard Roark.

p. 754 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/the-line-of-the.md)