Quote

Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it.

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
Wealth
Unable
Since
Concrete
Rich
Bound
Illiterates
Time
Greed
Immemorial
Bounds
Hurled
Motivation
Accusation
Produce
Conceive
Source
Industrial

More quotes by 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
Man cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy.
Ayn Rand
Image
Individualism regards man-every man-as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being.
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
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
To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’ The meaning of the ‘I’ is an independent, self-sufficient entity that does not exist for the sake of any other person. A person who exists only for the sake of his loved one is not an independent entity, but a spiritual parasite. The love of a parasite is worth nothing.
Ayn Rand
Image
In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.
Ayn Rand
Image
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
Ayn Rand
Image
I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.
Ayn Rand
Image
Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Ayn Rand
Image
Identify the dominant philosophy of a society and you can predict its future.
Ayn Rand
Image
Ah, there's nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization - this tea ritual and the detective novel.
Ayn Rand
Image
There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine, that attacked (or 'limited') reason, which did not preach submission to the power of some authority.
Ayn Rand
Image
There is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone.
Ayn Rand
Image
Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?
Ayn Rand
Image
Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand
Image
the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.
Ayn Rand
Image
The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendour that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach.
Ayn Rand
Image
If a dedication page were to precede the total of my work, it would read: To the glory of Man.
Ayn Rand
Image
If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor respect for others.
Ayn Rand