Quote

Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.

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
Called
Height
Collectivist
Living
Greed
Tribal
Ever
Capitalism
Heights
Standards
Poorest
Raised
Conceive
Citizens
Gang
Equal
Begun
System
Standard

More quotes by Ayn Rand

Image
If a man wants love he should correct his weaknesses, or his flaws, and he may deserve it. But he cannot expect the unearned, either in love or in money either in matter or in spirit.
Ayn Rand
Image
If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose.
Ayn Rand
Image
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand
Image
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand
Image
Every honest man lives for himself. Every man worth calling a man lives for himself. The one who doesn't - doesn't live at all.
Ayn Rand
Image
I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
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
Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
Ayn Rand
Image
Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.
Ayn Rand
Image
Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked — or that America is culturally bankrupt.
Ayn Rand
Image
A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race - and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.
Ayn Rand
Image
The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO.
Ayn Rand
Image
As long as men are free to speak, a small, rational minority will always prevail over an irrational majority.
Ayn Rand
Image
A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.
Ayn Rand
Image
Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burnt at the stake he'd taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness from the face of the Earth.
Ayn Rand
Image
If you want to feel good, be rational.
Ayn Rand
Image
Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don't ignore your own desires.... Don't sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.
Ayn Rand
Image
She did not know the nature of her loneliness. The only words that named it were: This is not the world I expected.
Ayn Rand
Image
By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values.
Ayn Rand
Image
When one turns from reason to faith, when one rejects the absolutism of reality, one undercuts the absolutism of one's consciousness - and one's mind becomes an organ one cannot trust any longer. It becomes what the mystics claim it to be: a tool of distortion.
Ayn Rand