Ayn Rand Quotes on Money & Wealth (21 Quotes)

At a time like this, we can't afford the luxury of thinking!

He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved.

Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish.

Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don't ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves By lowering your standards By doing work you despise for purchasers your scorn If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity Is this the root of your hatred of money.

You're not sorry. You could've been here if you made the effort. But when did you ever make an effort for anybody but yourself You're not interested in any of us or in anything we do. You think if you pay the bills, that's enough, don't you Money That's all you know. And all you give us is money. Have you even given us any time.

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.

Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil To love a thing is to know its nature. To love money is to known and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owner a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it.

Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.

What did they seek from him What were they after He had never asked anything of them it was they who wished to hold him, they who pressed a claim on him - and they seemed to have the form of affection, but it was a form which he found harder to endure than any sort of hatred. He despised causeless affection, just as he despised unearned wealth. They professed to love him for some unknown reason and they ignored all the things for which he could wish to be loved. He wondered what response they could hope to obtain from him in such manner - if his response was what they wanted. And it was, he thought else why those constant complaints, those unceasing accusations about his indifference Why that chronic air of suspicion, as if they were waiting to be hurt He had never had a desire to hurt them, but he had always felt their defensive, reproachful expectation they seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or actions, it was almost . . . almost as if they were wounded by the mere fact of his being. Don't start imagining the insane - he told himself severely, struggling to face the riddle with the strictest of his ruthless sense of justice. He could not condemn them without understanding and he could not understand.

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose ... the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before.... Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.