The road to hell is paved with good intentions

The road to hell is paved with good intentions is a proverb or aphorism. The exact origin of this proverb is unknown and its form has evolved over time.

Quotes

• Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.
  • George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651), No. 176

• Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.
  • Variant, quoted in Extracts from the Works of Various Authors for the Entertainment and Instruction of a Party of Emigrants on Their Voyage to Sydney. Kiwi Publishers. 1838. 

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 362-64.

• Hell is paved with good intentions.
  • Quoted as Richard Baxter's saying by Coleridge. Notes Theol., Polit. and Miscel, p. 259. Ed. 1853

• Hell is paved with infants' skulls.
  • Baxter. In Hazlitt—Table Talk. He was stoned by the women of Kidderminster for quoting this in the pulpit.

• L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs.
  • Hell is full of good wishes or desires.
  • St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Richard Chenevix Trench calls it "queen of all proverbs".

• Hell is paved with priests' skulls.
  • St. John Chrysostom

• Do not be troubled by St. Bernard's saying that "Hell is full of good intentions and wills."
  • Francis de Sales, letter to Madame de Chantal. (1605). Letter XII, p. 70. Selections from the Spiritual Letters of S. Francis de Sales. Translation by the author of "A Dominican Artist." Letter LXXIV in Blaise ed. Quoted also in Letter XXII, Book II. of Leonard's ed. (1726). Collet's La Vraie et Solide Piété, Part I, Chapter LXXV

• Hell is paved with the skulls of great scholars, and paled in with the bones of great men.
  • Giles Firmin, The Real Christian (1670). Quoted as a proverb.

• El infierno es lleno de buenas intenciones.
  • Hell is full of good intentions.
  • Adapted probably from a saying of Antonio Guevara, quoted by the Portuguese as "Hell is paved with good intentions, and roofed with lost opportunities".

• Hell is paved with good intentions.
  • Samuel Johnson, (Quoted) Boswell's Life of Johnson (1775)

• It has been more wittily than charitably said that hell is paved with good intentions; they have their place in heaven also.
  • Robert Southey, Colloquies on Society

• Die Helle ist mit Mönchskappen, Pfaffenfalten, und Pickelhauben gepflastert.
  • Hell is paved with monks' cowls, priests' drapery, and spike-helmets.
  • Wander traces the saying to 1605

See also

• Murphy's law

External links

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