Very few people in history wrote 1000+ page books, sold 10 million+ copies, were loved as much as hated, and became more influential after dying. Ayn Rand is one of them. Discover the 3 signs your society is doomed, why loving money is NOBLE, and more insights from Rand👇

Money is not evil but its opposite - a "token of honor." The moochers take your labor "by tears." The looters use "force." But money embodies the noble idea that "the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods." Money makes us human.

Ayn Rand wrote that you will know the real artist by his "love for truth." The subjective, "art for art's sake" artists pretend to channel "higher mysteries" but their work comes out like "vomit out of a drunkard." Real art takes effort, discipline, and "tension of mind."

Ayn Rand on what money CAN'T do: "Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent." Money is a tool to realize your values and achieve your purpose. It will never tell you WHAT to value or which purpose to seek

Money earned via compromise is self-defeating: “Did you get your money by pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy."

Ayn Rand's hero John Galt lists the three signs that mean your society is going downhill fast:

- Men who produce need "permission from men who produce nothing"

- Money flows to people dealing not in goods but "in favors"

- Men "get richer by graft and by pull than by work"

Rand on what loving money means: “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you - a passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.” Money makes possible an Exchange Of Excellence between voluntary peers

Ayn Rand nails the difference between the gold standard and fiat: “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."

Ayn Rand’s villains? People who live second-hand. People who don't "want to be great, but to be thought great." People who don't "want to build, but to be admired as a builder." People who put the "the impression of doing" over actual blood and bones action.

The Fountainhead hero Howard Roark on what it's like talking to someone who is living FOR AND BY social approval: "The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him."