Good Intentions Quotes - Page 5

• Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That [affirmative action] programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race.

  Clarence Thomas

  Equality, Law, Race

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• As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce.

  Jacqueline Novogratz

  Trying, Twenties, World

  Jacqueline Novogratz (2012). “The Blue Sweater : Bridging The Gap Between Rich And Poor In An Intercnnected World”, p.4, HarperCollins Publishers

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• An institution which is financed by a budget - or which enjoys a monopoly which the customer cannot escape - is rewarded for what it deserves rather than what it earns. It is paid for 'good intentions' and 'programs'. It is paid for not alienating important constituents rather than satisfying any one group. It is misdirected by the way it is being paid into defining performance and results as what will produce the budget rather than as what will produce contribution.

  Peter Drucker

  Important, Way, Defining

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• For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I'm grumpy or mad, I'll realize that I've not been paying attention to my soul and I've not been following my best routine.

  Robert Fulghum

  Fall, Old Habits, Mad

  "Handbook for the Soul". Book edited by Benjamin Shield and Richard Carlson, 1995.

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• If our mind is in conflict, not balanced with our body and with the needs of the soul, then there is a fundamental disunity in our life. Only if we have unity within ourselves, we can create unity in the world around us. You can't give something you don't have, even if you have all good intentions

  Radhanath Swami

  Giving, Soul, Mind

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• Sex is the point of contact between man and nature, where morality and good intentions fall to primitive urges.

  Camille Paglia

  Sex, Fall, Men

  Camille Paglia (2018). “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism”, p.29, Canongate Books

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• When government takes away options, it is bound to make some people worse off, even with intrinsicallly good intentions behind that government intervention.

  Thomas Sowell

  Government, People, Liberty

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• We all wear some disguise, make some professions, use some artifice, to set ourselves off as being better than we are; and yet it is not denied that we have some good intentions and praiseworthy qualities at bottom.

  William Hazlitt

  Quality, Use, Disguise

  William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays”, p.29

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• Good intentions are very mortal and perishable things. Like very mellow and choice fruit, they are difficult to keep.

  Charles Simmons

  Choices, Fruit, Difficult

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• I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non-Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

  Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  Country, Differences, Racism

  "Excerpt: 'The Caged Virgin'", www.npr.org. May 4, 2006.

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• In doing one's work primarily for God, the fear of undue restriction is put, sooner or later, out of the question. He pays me and He pays me well. He pays me and He will not fail to pay me. He pays me not merely for the rule of thumb task, which is all that men recognize, but to everything else I bring to my job in the way of industry, good intentions and cheerfulness. If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as St. Paul says, we may depend upon it that He loveth a cheerful worker; and where we can cleave the way to His love there we find His endless generosity.

  Basil King

  Love, Jobs, Fear

  Basil King (2012). “The Conquest of Fear”, p.172, tredition

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• My good intentions are completely lethal.

  Margaret Atwood

  Funny, Humor, Virtue

  Margaret Atwood (1987). “Selected Poems: 1965-1975”, p.59, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Maybe Dauntless was formed with good intentions, with the right ideals and the right goals. But it has strayed far from them. And the same is true of Erudite, I realize. A long time ago, Erudite pursued knowledge and ingenuity for the sake of doing good. Now they pursue knowledge and ingenuity with greedy hearts. I wonder if the other factions suffer from the same problem. I have not thought about it before.

  Veronica Roth

  Heart, Long, Goal

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• And I don't feel any fear in a sense, because I have every good intention in my heart. When you face up to bad things in the past, the most important thing is not to allow them to happen today or in the future, and as storytellers, we must play our part in that.

  Michelle Yeoh

  Heart, Past, Play

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• It's a pragmatist's business, comedy. Start off with good intentions and references to the Pompidou Centre and you end up with boiled sweets and a pantomime cow.

  Mel Smith

  Sweet, Cows, Comedy

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• It is not a profession to be a pianist and musician. It is a philosophy, a conception of life that cannot be based on good intentions or natural talent. First and foremost there must be a spirit of sacrifice.

  Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli

  Philosophy, Sacrifice, Natural Talent

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• As individuals, as families, as neighbors, as members of one community, people of all races and political views are usually decent, kind, compassionate. But in large corporations or governments, when great power accumulates in their hands, some become monsters even with good intentions.

  Dean Koontz

  Gratitude, Race, Government

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Dark Rivers of the Heart: A Novel”, p.87, Bantam

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• Institutions mistake good intentions for objectives. They say "health care"; that's an intention, not an objective.

  Peter Drucker

  Mistake, Care, Institutions

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• 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.

  John C. Maxwell

  Judging, People, Matter

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• 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.

  George Washington

  Government, Organization, Administration

  George Washington, John Jay, Jared Sparks (1850). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America”, p.16, New York : J. Wiley

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• Make the most of today. Translate your good intentions into actual deeds.

  Grenville Kleiser

  Life, Motivational, Deeds

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• No one is born with good character; it's not a hereditary trait. And it isn't determined by a single noble act. Character is established by conscientious adherence to moral values, not by lofty rhetoric or good intentions.

  Michael Josephson

  Character, Noble, Adherence

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• The road to conservation is paved with good intentions that often prove futile, or even dangerous, due to a lack of understanding of either land or economic land use.

  Aldo Leopold

  Land, Understanding, Use

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• You are the antithesis of a racist if you're white and you want to be black and you go out and do everything you can to identify as black, how in the world can they condemn that? That's not fraud. That's good intentions. And as we know, as we've learned, we are supposed to examine the good intentions and not the nature of the evidence.

  Rush Limbaugh

  White, Black, Racist

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• Good intentions are impotent unless based on reality.

  Arthur Jensen

  Reality, Intention

  Arthur Jensen (2012). “Educability and Group Differences”, p.17, Routledge

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