I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned. I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command not obey.

In 1941 Paramount Pictures produced a movie version of the play. The novel centers on an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"—those who attempt to live through others placing others above self. Afterward Ayn Rand turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.

Ayn Rand (pron. In politics Ayn Rand condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism instead supporting a minarchist limited government and laissez-faire capitalism which Ayn Rand believed was the only social system that protected individual rights.