Quote

Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others.

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
Economic
Expense
Politics
Expenses
Force
Consists
Others
Benefit
Government
Benefits
Giving
Humor
Every
Liberty
Unearned
Men
Economy
Interference

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
Love should be treated like a business deal, but every business deal has its own terms and its own currency. And in love, the currency is virtue. You love people not for what you do for them or what they do for you. You love them for the values, the virtues, which they have achieved in their own character.
Ayn Rand
Image
The social system based on and consonant with the altruist morality-with the code of self-sacrifice- is socialism, in all or any of its variants: fascism, Nazism, communism. All of them treat man as a sacrificial animal to be immolated for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the society, the state.
Ayn Rand
Image
Do not let your fire go out ... Do not let the Hero in your soul perish ... Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Ayn Rand
Image
The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time.
Ayn Rand
Image
To know one's own desires, their meaning and their costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality.
Ayn Rand
Image
Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge.
Ayn Rand
Image
There's nothing of any importance in life-except how well you do your work.
Ayn Rand
Image
Man is the only living species that has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.
Ayn Rand
Image
A free mind and a free market are corollaries.
Ayn Rand
Image
I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline.
Ayn Rand
Image
The mind is the attribute of man. When man is born, he comes into existence with only one weapon with him--The reasoning mind.
Ayn Rand
Image
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
Ayn Rand
Image
Thinking men cannot be ruled ambitious men do not stagnate.
Ayn Rand
Image
Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
Ayn Rand
Image
It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.
Ayn Rand
Image
I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.
Ayn Rand
Image
Happiness is not something you have in your hands it's something you carry in your heart. Happiness is one thing that multiplies by division. Happiness is that peculiar sensation you acquire when you are too busy to be miserable. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand
Image
Sacrifice does not mean the rejection of the worthless, but of the precious
Ayn Rand
Image
The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.
Ayn Rand
Image
Your soul has a single basic function-the act of valuing.
Ayn Rand