tdg.typepad.com — Certain people have a way of saying things that shake us at the core. Even when the words do not seem harsh or offensive, the impact is shattering. What we could be experiencing is the intent behind the words. When we intend to do good, we do. When we intend to do harm, it happens.
Oct 4, 2008 View in Crawl 4
cynnewyorkOct 4, 2008Submitter
This says it all for me: "I do not want my Party, the Democratic Party, to be defined by an intent to win elections by any means necessary; I want my Party to be able to win elections on the basis of truly democratic and historically Democratic intent."
innergypsyOct 4, 2008
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. [1855 H. G. Bohn Hand-Book of Proverbs 514]
cynnewyorkOct 5, 2008Submitter
Actually, my research reveals the following;Although many people believe that Samuel Johnson said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," he shouldn't get credit for this one.Johnson said something close, but he was following in others' footsteps. In Boswell's Life of Johnson, in an entry marked April 16, 1775, Boswell quotes Johnson as saying (on some other occasion), "Hell is paved with good intentions." Note, no prefatory "the road to..." Boswell's editor, Malone, added a footnote indicating this is a 'proverbial sentence,' and quoting an earlier 1651 source (yet still not in the common wording).Robert Wilson, in the newsgroup alt.quotations, provided two other sources prior to Johnson. John Ray, in 1670, cited as a proverb "Hell is paved with good intentions." Even earlier than that, it's been attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), as "Hell is full of good intentions or desires." Just how it got to the road to Hell being paved this way, and not Hell itself, I don't know.