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More Quotes by Ayn Rand
The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.
A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. If bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed.
Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
It is not fools that I seek to address.
I guard my treasures: my thoughts, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
To preserve one's mind intact through a modern college education is a test of courage and endurance, but the battle is worth it and the stakes are the highest possible to man: the survival of reason.
