# Quote — Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

> "Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement."

- Author: [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md)
- Book: [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md)
- Page: 739
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Fountainhead#Part_IV_(_Howard_Roark_)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead/men-have-been

## 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)