Ayn Rand's Fountain Head is one of my all time favorite book. I read it when I was 23 and (obviously) had a huge impact on me. I liked it so much that I didnt want to distrub the essence of that book by reading any of her other books (I have read here essays). It's a weird logic but it worked out good so far and till date I haven't even read Atlas Shrugged (which usually has a polarizing effect on most and so far I have escaped unscathed).
One of my all time favorite quote is:
"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. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one's mind; security, of abandoning one's values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. 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. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential." - Introduction to The Fountainhead,The Objectivist, March 1968, Ayn Rand.
Above lines had so much impact on me that every time I try to rationalize my irrational actions, I playback those lines, which in turn complicates the rationlizing algorithm making it harder for my grey matter to process.
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