Wit & Attitude Quote by Ayn Rand

Rand doesn’t just distrust the state; she distrusts the alibi that makes the state feel holy. The line targets a familiar rhetorical maneuver: laundering coercion through benevolence. By putting “do good” in scare quotes, she signals that the phrase is less a moral aim than a costume - a way to make force socially palatable, even noble. Her real argument is psychological and political at once: the problem isn’t only what coercion does to its victims, it’s what moral language does to the coercer. It offers a self-image so flattering that it blocks accountability.

The pairing of “power-lust” and “stupidity” is classic Randian contempt, but it’s also a strategic narrowing of the field. She refuses the comfortable middle category of the “well-meaning” busybody. Either you crave control, or you’re too naive to understand what control entails. That binary is meant to be bracing: if you’re tempted to defend paternalistic policies as compassionate, she forces you to confront the possibility that compassion is being used as a permission slip.

Context matters. Writing in the long shadow of totalitarian regimes and mid-century faith in centralized planning, Rand treats “good motives” as the most dangerous form of propaganda because they recruit decent people. The subtext is a warning about moral blackmail: once “doing good” becomes an unquestionable justification, dissent can be framed as selfishness, and force can scale up without ever losing its halo.