# Quote — Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

> "Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.
>
> "That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon!"
>
> "So it is."
>
> "I haven't the time to waste on silly questions."
>
> "All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. "Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?"
>
> "It’s the Parthenon!" said the Dean.
>
> "Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon."
>
> The ruler struck the glass over the picture.
>
> "Look, " said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in the wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?"

- Author: [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md)
- Book: [The Fountainhead](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/the-fountainhead.md)
- Page: 23
- 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/why-do-you

## 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)