“Good intentions based on sincerity are definitely a noble thing. But the irony is, good intentions alone are never enough.”
Related quotes
“Good intentions and inspiration are simply not enough.”
Thank Goodness! (2006)
Context: One thing in particular struck me when I compared the medical world on which my life now depended with the religious institutions I have been studying so intensively in recent years. One of the gentler, more supportive themes to be found in every religion (so far as I know) is the idea that what really matters is what is in your heart: if you have good intentions, and are trying to do what (God says) is right, that is all anyone can ask. Not so in medicine! If you are wrong —especially if you should have known better — your good intentions count for almost nothing. And whereas taking a leap of faith and acting without further scrutiny of one's options is often celebrated by religions, it is considered a grave sin in medicine. A doctor whose devout faith in his personal revelations about how to treat aortic aneurysm led him to engage in untested trials with human patients would be severely reprimanded if not driven out of medicine altogether. There are exceptions, of course. A few swashbuckling, risk-taking pioneers are tolerated and (if they prove to be right) eventually honored, but they can exist only as rare exceptions to the ideal of the methodical investigator who scrupulously rules out alternative theories before putting his own into practice. Good intentions and inspiration are simply not enough.In other words, whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its members to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does! And I'm not just talking about the standards 'at the top' — among the surgeons and doctors who make life or death decisions every day. I'm talking about the standards of conscientiousness endorsed by the lab technicians and meal preparers, too. This tradition puts its faith in the unlimited application of reason and empirical inquiry, checking and re-checking, and getting in the habit of asking "What if I'm wrong?" Appeals to faith or membership are never tolerated. Imagine the reception a scientist would get if he tried to suggest that others couldn't replicate his results because they just didn't share the faith of the people in his lab! And, to return to my main point, it is the goodness of this tradition of reason and open inquiry that I thank for my being alive today.
“I do not question the sincerity or the good intentions of those who feel that way.”
10 January 1940, Speech at Orient Club, Bombay, also quoted in Speeches and Statements of the Marquess of Linlithgow, p. 229.
“… intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over…”
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent
“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.”
Bonam quippe intentionem, hoc est, rectam in se dicimus, operationem vero non quod boni aliquid in se suscipiat, sed quod ex bona intentione procedat. Unde et ab eodem homine cum in diversis temporibus idem fiat, pro diversitate tamen intentione eius operatio modo bono modo mala dicitur.
Ethica, seu Scito Teipsum, Bk. 1; translation by D E Luscombe from Peter Abelard's Ethics (1971) p. 53
Context: 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.
“The Finder” (p. 85)
Earthsea Books, Tales from Earthsea (2001)
“Hell is paved with good intentions.”
April 14, 1775
Malone added a footnote indicating this is a "proverbial sentence", quoting an earlier 1651 source. At least two other sources appear prior to Johnson. John Ray, in 1670, cited as a proverb, "Hell is paved with good intentions." Even earlier than that, it has been attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), as "Hell is full of good intentions or desires."
[alt.quotations, Earlier Attributions, Wilson, Robert, UseNet, 2009-01-06]
Note that "The road to Hell…" is not part of the quotation.
The Samuel Johnson web site suggests this entry is dated 16 April, but it appears to be part of the previous entry.
Samuel Johnson web site http://www.samueljohnson.com/road.html
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2