"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"
- Ayn Rand, American novelist and philosopher
"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?"
- Ayn Rand, American novelist and philosopher
money is a noun
so her quote makes no sense, much like everything else she ever wrote
(from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/evil)
Evil: n.
1. The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness.
2. That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction: a leader's power to do both good and evil.
3. An evil force, power, or personification.
4. Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice.
if you read the passage, maybe you'd understand.
knee-jerk reactions are always funny to read, because it takes just a few comments to set them straight.
Ayn Rand didn't come up with the saying, "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil." She's simply misquoting it to further her warped Objectivist philosophy.
@ qwhacker: I wouldn't pick up 'Atlas Shrugged' again except to use it to prop open a door or window.
Except she completely fails the whole "show, don't tell" rule for writing. Whatever the agenda of a novel, an author should not ever have characters lecturing the reader for pages on end.
Next time I want to make a person to stop reading or have a love for books I'll give them my copy of "Atlas Shrugged". Ugh. I need to go clean my palate now.
Oh, I also get irked when people (including Rand) misquote the famous words of St. Paul which spoke of the LOVE of money, not money itelf. Money itself is neither good nor bad, it is merely a tool to efficiently trade goods and services.
More Rand:
"There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”).
"If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice."
it is realy simple let me explain in first grade level
"the love of money", love is a good feeling, you make love a bad feeling, when you you love something bad!
in this sentence the MONEY is the evil caracther. so money is the root of all evil, as would be Satan. The thing here is that they put the money as responsible of one evils acts, and it is not true. the love to succeed can not be evil. beign a parasite is evil, and anything you do is because you choose, not the money.the root of all evil is the love of beating others, instead of the desire of achieving.....
Don't look down your nose on Ayn Rand unless you've read her works and are familiar with her ideas. It is fine to reject her ideas, but make sure you are doing it on the basis of something besides the idea that "intellectuals don't think that way." This kind of effete intellectual peer pressure is a real scourge of free thought and discussion in this country.
P.S. Collectivism is lunacy. Take care.
You guys are really the quintessential examples of what the KGB called "useful idiots."