Quotes on Good Intentions

In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.

Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future.

My good intentions are completely lethal.

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

In the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.

Making matters worse is people's natural inclination to be easy on themselves, judging themselves according to their good intentions-while holding others to a higher standard and judging them by their worst actions.

One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding.

Her cake is a failure, but she is loved anyway. She is loved, she thinks, in more or less the way the gifts will be appreciated: because they have been given with good intentions , because they exist, because they are part of a world in which one wants what one gets.

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!

You don’t make art out of good intentions.

And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help you plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course.

Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.