Howard Roark: Our country, the noblest country in the history of men, was based on the principle of individualism. The principle of man's inalienable rights. It was a country where a man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce, not to give up and renounce. To prosper, not to starve. To achieve, not to plunder. To hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value. And as his highest virtue, his self respect. Look at the results. That is what the collectivists are now asking you to destroy, as much of the earth has been destroyed.


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Howard Roark: The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks, the parasite copies. The creator produces, the parasite loots. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature - the parasite's concern is the conquest of men. The creator requires independence, he neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice. The parasite seeks power, he wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery. He claims that man is only a tool for the use of others. That he must think as they think, act as they act, and live is selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own. Look at history. Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective.


--Gary Cooper (as Howard Roark) in The Fountainhead

Longfellow Deeds: I've tramped the earth with hopeless beat, Searching in vain for a glimpse of you. Then heaven thrust you at my very feet, A lovely angel, too lovely to woo. My dream has been answered, but my life’s just as bleak. I'm handcuffed and speechless, in your presence divine. For my heart longs to cry out, if it only could speak. I love you, my angel, be mine, be mine.


--Gary Cooper (as Longfellow Deeds) in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Lou Gehrig: Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.


--Gary Cooper (as Henry Louis 'Lou' Gehrig) in The Pride of the Yankees

Lou Gehrig: Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.


--Gary Cooper (as Henry Louis 'Lou' Gehrig) in The Pride of the Yankees

Marshal Will Kane: Don't shove me, Harve. I'm tired of being shoved.


--Gary Cooper (as Marshal Will Kane) in High Noon

Stretch Willoughby: I'm glad you asked me though because I'd like to tell you. In the first place I don't see where you get off pickin' anybody for President when you haven't the decency to treat a person like a human bein'instead of askin' people to sit down at your table so that you can laugh at them. Maybe you oughtta go out and find out what they think and feel and what their needs are and what you can do to help them. That's all that's goin' to count in the long run. If, if Judge Smith there wants to be President, he ain't gonna get very far lookin' down his nose at people, and, and thinkin' he's better than they are. Abraham Lincoln didn't have to do that, and he turned out to be a pretty good President.


--Gary Cooper (as Stretch Willoughby) in The Cowboy and the Lady