the road to hell is paved with good intentions

proverb Good intentions do not matter if a person's actions lead to bad outcomes. A: "I'm sorry, I was only trying to explain where Tom was coming from! I didn't mean to make matters worse." B: "Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

See also: good, hell, intention, pave, road, to

road to hell is paved with good intentions

Prov. People often mean well but do bad things. (Can be a strong rebuke, implying that the person you are addressing did something bad and his or her good intentions do not matter.) Jane: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; I only wanted to help you. Jane: Oh, yeah? The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

See also: good, hell, intention, pave, road, to

the road to hell is paved with good intentions

People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions to mean that people often intend to do good things but in fact do not, often because they are lazy or weak. She said the road to hell was paved with good intentions, that she really had decided to hand write six dozen personal letters, but she just didn't have the time. Note: Path is sometimes used instead of road. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and there are many, many pots of vitamin tablets which have been started but never finished. Note: To pave a path or road means to cover it using flat stones called paving stones. The word `pavement' is derived from this word. This expression was used by the writer Samuel Johnson and is mentioned in his biography in an entry dated 16 April 1775, in the form `hell is paved with good intentions'. The idea is that good intentions do not guarantee a good outcome.

See also: good, hell, intention, pave, road, to

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

the road to ˌhell is paved with good inˈtentions

(saying) it is not enough to intend to do good things, behave better, etc.; you must actually do them, be better, etc.

See also: good, hell, intention, pave, road, to

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive

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"The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That's the intent of passage of the law against technical malversation, to tell people like him that one cannot jungle funds, no matter how good the intention," Ejercito said.

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I am reminded of my late mothers comment that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. None of your proposals in contrary to our thoughts, you can see the exact opposite.

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"The road to hell is paved with good intentions and we don't realise what we are giving up when we give the state the power to monitor our private lives," he said.

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