# Quote — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

> "But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced."

- Author: [Ayn Rand](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand.md)
- Book: [Atlas Shrugged](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged.md)
- Page: 410
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Chapter_Two:_The_Aristocracy_of_Pull) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/but-you-say

## More from this book

> "Get the hell out of my way!"

p. 1125 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/get-the-hell.md)

> "Never think of pain or danger or enemies a moment longer than is necessary to fight them."

p. 1092 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/never-think-of-pain.md)

> "People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie - the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on."

p. 859 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ayn-rand/atlas-shrugged/people-think-that.md)