Quote

Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman's tool is values the bureaucrat's tool is fear.

Ayn Rand

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ayn Rand
Age: 77 †
Born: 1905
Born: February 2
Died: 1982
Died: March 6
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
St. Petersburg
Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum
Mean
Value
Rewards
Payment
Men
Liberty
Economics
Incentives
Economic
Capitalism
Businessman
Values
Threat
Offering
Bureaucrat
Fear
Destruction
Reward
Imprisonment
Means
Tools
Tool
Exercised
Political
Negative
Injury
Incentive
Power
Positive
Punishment
Bureaucrats

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
We are one...alone...and only...and we love you who are one...alone...and only. We looked into each other's eyes and we knew the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly. And we felt torn, torn for some word we could not find.
Ayn Rand
Image
I cannot stand Tolstoy, and reading him was the most boring literary duty I ever had to perform, his philosophy and his sense of life are not merely mistaken, but evil, and yet, from a purely literary viewpoint, on his own terms, I have to evaluate him as a good writer.
Ayn Rand
Image
Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational.
Ayn Rand
Image
Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum? Give me an unobstructed right-of-way and I'll show them how to move the earth!
Ayn Rand
Image
Science was born as a result and consequence of philosophy it cannot survive without a philosophical base. If philosophy perishes, science will be next to go.
Ayn Rand
Image
Emotions are inherent in your nature, but their content is dictated by your mind. Your emotional capacity is an empty motor, and your values are the fuel with which your mind fills it.
Ayn Rand
Image
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand
Image
There are no evil thoughts except one the refusal to think.
Ayn Rand
Image
Aristotle may be regarded as the cultural barometer of Western history. Whenever his influence dominated the scene, it paved the way for one of history's brilliant eras whenever it fell, so did mankind.
Ayn Rand
Image
I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered-and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
Ayn Rand
Image
Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever.
Ayn Rand
Image
He, too, stood looking at her for a moment - and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning.
Ayn Rand
Image
Reason can be fought with reason. How are you going to fight the unreasonable? The trouble with you, my dear, and with most people, is that you don’t have sufficient respect for the senseless. The senseless is the major factor in our lives. You have no chance if it is your enemy.
Ayn Rand
Image
Love is our response to our highest values.
Ayn Rand
Image
It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.
Ayn Rand
Image
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand
Image
The problem is not those who dream, but those who can only dream.
Ayn Rand
Image
Married people dont look like they have bedrooms on their minds when they look at each other. In this world, either you're virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both...Not both.
Ayn Rand
Image
Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically, the goal is the obliteration of reason psychologically, it is the erosion of ambition.
Ayn Rand
Image
When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter if I am right, he will learn if I am wrong, I will one of us will win, but both will profit.
Ayn Rand