The Road to Hell: Is it paved with good intentions?
Ralph Yozzo
intentions".
What is the origins of this saying?
Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
(If such a place existed.) (Personally, I prefer the Greek vision
of death. Everyone went to the underworld. Those that could pay
Charon made it across the River Styx. They had no Devil. I
believe it took Christianity to bring us the Devil and Hell.
Of course, the Greeks had Hades. But he wasn't such a bad guy
once you got to know him. :-) )
--
Ralph Yozzo (yo...@watson.ibm.com)
From the beautiful and historic New York State Mid-Hudson Valley.
Todd Andrew Simpson
I've heard people say, "The road to Hell is paved with good
intentions".
What is the origins of this saying?
Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
I think it means that efforts to do good often backfire. I guess it
is a warning against thinking too highly of people just because they
say they want to do good. One has to make sure they are moving in
the right direction.... I don't know who first said it, but it's
not surprising that one would hear it a lot in a society where
free-market competition is the ideal and that expects progress to
result from self-interested behavior. I never interpreted it as
meaning that people who wish to do good, either should or do go to
Hell. I don't think they should either....
Todo
Matthew Woodford
>intentions".
>
>What is the origins of this saying?
>
>Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
>cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
>(If such a place existed.) (Personally, I prefer the Greek vision
>of death. Everyone went to the underworld. Those that could pay
>Charon made it across the River Styx. They had no Devil. I
>believe it took Christianity to bring us the Devil and Hell.
>Of course, the Greeks had Hades. But he wasn't such a bad guy
>once you got to know him. :-) )
This is absolute bullshit! What about the guy who was perpetually being
broken on a wheel, or the one who eternally pushed a heavy boulder up a
hill , which eternally fell back down when he reached the top, or Tantalus
whose food and drink always withdrew from his reach when he tried to eat or
drink?? The notion of payment for one's sins in the afterlife is far older
than Christianity.
As for the phrase , think of revolutionaries such as Stalin who believe they
know what's best and believe the end justifies the means. Or Hitler: he
believed what he was doing was right. Besides which you don't have to take it to
mean the good-intentioned-but-unscrupulous themselves go to hell, you could
interpret it as meaning that they create a hell on earth.
Matt.
--
Matthew Woodford.....mjw@uk.ac.cov.cck.....Gollum Fan Club!
e...@ccu.umanitoba.ca
>yo...@watson.ibm.com (Ralph Yozzo) writes...
> I've heard people say, "The road to Hell is paved with good
> intentions".
> What is the origins of this saying?
> Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
> cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
>I think it means that efforts to do good often backfire.
I think it means people fail to do what they intended to. 'I planned
to finish my paper last weekend but I drank beer and partied instead.'
As for going to hell... relax, it's a metaphor.
Werner
Roger Lustig
>>I've heard people say, "The road to Hell is paved with good
>>intentions".
>>What is the origins of this saying?
>>Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
>>cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
>>(If such a place existed.) (Personally, I prefer the Greek vision
>>of death. Everyone went to the underworld. Those that could pay
>>Charon made it across the River Styx. They had no Devil. I
>>believe it took Christianity to bring us the Devil and Hell.
>>Of course, the Greeks had Hades. But he wasn't such a bad guy
>>once you got to know him. :-) )
>This is absolute bullshit! What about the guy who was perpetually being
>broken on a wheel, or the one who eternally pushed a heavy boulder up a
>hill , which eternally fell back down when he reached the top, or Tantalus
>whose food and drink always withdrew from his reach when he tried to eat or
>drink?? The notion of payment for one's sins in the afterlife is far older
>than Christianity.
True, but these were exceptional cases. They were being punished for
hubris or something worse. They offended the gods in very personal ways.
It's *not* absolute BS. It's pretty accurate. The Jewish Tophet and
the Greek Hades were not evil places like the Christian Hell.
>As for the phrase , think of revolutionaries such as Stalin who believe they
>know what's best and believe the end justifies the means. Or Hitler: he
>believed what he was doing was right. Besides which you don't have to take it to
>mean the good-intentioned-but-unscrupulous themselves go to hell, you could
>interpret it as meaning that they create a hell on earth.
Indeed: it's meant to warn against those who, after it's all gone horribly
wrong, whine, "but I MEANT well!"
Roger
Robert L. McMillin
> I've heard people say, "The road to Hell is paved with good
> intentions".
> What is the origins of this saying?
The saying has but one origin (okay, maybe more than one, but next time,
you'll have to promise to make your subject agree with your verb): it's
a corruption of a common English expression coined near the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution: "The road to Hell is paved with good
inventions." Inventors, a notoriously atheistic lot, skipped church on
Sundays, thus incurring the wrath of God and the occaisional parson.
The obvious proximity between "inventions" and "intentions" led to the
more familiar phrase...
Frivolous asides aside, Bartlett's Fifteenth Edition renders the
expression thus: "Hell is paved with good intentions," the quote from
John Ray circa 1670. The *road* to Hell apparently took a bit longer;
since most roads between cities didn't actually get paved until well
into the 1920's in the United States, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if
this more familiar version entered common use some time around the turn
of the century.
--
Robert L. McMillin | Surf City Software | r...@helen.surfcty.com | Dude!
"What's taking so long? It's only typing!"
-- a marketing manager posing as a software manager
PHILIP C BELL
> In article <C9wMy...@cck.coventry.ac.uk> m...@rowan.coventry.ac.uk (Matthew Woodford) writes:
> >>I've heard people say, "The road to Hell is paved with good
> >>intentions".
>
> >>What is the origins of this saying?
>
> >>Does it mean that often people wish to do good and instead
> >>cause ill? If so, I don't think they should go to Hell for this.
> >>(If such a place existed.) (Personally, I prefer the Greek vision
> >>of death. Everyone went to the underworld. Those that could pay
> >>Charon made it across the River Styx. They had no Devil. I
> >>believe it took Christianity to bring us the Devil and Hell.
> >>Of course, the Greeks had Hades. But he wasn't such a bad guy
> >>once you got to know him. :-) )
>
> >This is absolute bullshit! What about the guy who was perpetually being
> >broken on a wheel, or the one who eternally pushed a heavy boulder up a
> >hill , which eternally fell back down when he reached the top, or Tantalus
> >whose food and drink always withdrew from his reach when he tried to eat or
> >drink?? The notion of payment for one's sins in the afterlife is far older
> >than Christianity.
>
> True, but these were exceptional cases. They were being punished for
> hubris or something worse. They offended the gods in very personal ways.
>
> It's *not* absolute BS. It's pretty accurate. The Jewish Tophet and
> the Greek Hades were not evil places like the Christian Hell.
I'm still working on the phrase, and will get back to you. However,
in the meantime, I will observe that Buddhism (certain schools) and
Zoroastrianism had Hells predating Christianity. The Jewish Kabbalah
describes several very hot levels of Hell. Islam has a very vivid tradition
of Hell. (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam may or may not have borrowed
infernal notions from the Zoroastrians.) Greek Hades was not an entirely
evil place, as Roger points out, but compare it with Virgil's Hades, which
is extremely unpleasant in many areas. "Facilis decensus Averno," or
something like that.
The fact that beliefs have changed over time is of great interest,
but it doesn't tell you much about what happens once you cross the bar.
The practice of virtue is always an option. B-)
-Philip Craig Chapman-Bell
pcb...@english.umass.edu
mal...@minster.york.ac.uk
>intentions".
>
>What is the origins of this saying?
No idea about the origin, but I have always understood it to mean
something different from what other posters are suggesting. To me, it
means that good intentions are not enough; you have to act on your
intentions too. In other words, hoping that good things will happen
does not excuse laziness. You will merrily saunter down the road to
Hell, always intending to look for the path to Heaven instead, but
unless you turn your intentions into action, you'll end up in Hell all
the same.
The phrase is usually said as a rebuttal when someone else's laziness
causes inconvenience to the speaker.
A: "It took me half an hour to find your house."
B: "I'm sorry, I meant to collect you from the station."
A: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions..."
-malc.
Ralph Yozzo
After reading George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman", you
might prefer Hell over Heaven. Many of the Cardinals, Popes,
and Priests certainly did. I especially like the way you
can wander back and forth between the two. It's like going
to a party that has a room for the dull people and another room
for the lively people.
Raphael Mankin
are of no worth. Like many proverbs it tells only half the story: the road to
heaven is paved with good deeds, but if your good intentions are not
actually implemented then ...
--
Raphael Mankin I am a man of impure speech and dwell
amongst a people of impure speech.
Is. vi. 5
bruce bowser
Paul Wolff
posted:
don't know how they found their way into it.
--
Paul
bruce bowser
The exact origin of this proverb is unknown and its form has evolved over time. The modern expression, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions", was first published in Henry G. Bohn's A Hand-book of Proverbs in 1855.[2] It appeared in a newspaper in 1833.[3] An earlier iteration, "Hell is full of good meanings and wishes", was published in 1670 in A Collection of English Proverbs collected by John Ray.[4]
In Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, the character Mercutio says, "The best intentions pave the way to Hell," a line which does not appear in Shakespeare's play.
The earliest known text resembling this phrase occurs in Virgil's Aeneid: "facilis descensus Averno (the descent to hell is easy)".[5]
A resemblance can be found in Ecclesiasticus 21:10, "The way of sinners is made plain with stones, but at the end thereof is the pit of hell."[6] The proverb is commonly misattributed to Bernard of Clairvaux who supposedly wrote (c. 1150), "L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés ou désirs" (hell is full of good wishes or desires).[7] This citation was made in 1640, some five hundred years after his death, and this text has not been found in any of his published works.
Another resemblance also can be found in one Hadith that Muhammad said: "Paradise is surrounded by hardships, and the Fire is surrounded by desires."
John Foxe quotes Tyndale as writing "Beware of good intents." (The second part of "Chapter 213" of Acts and Monuments cites "Fol. 87" of "The Wicked Mammon".)
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with_good_intentions
Lewis
> I wonder where this saying originated? And in what language?
then.
--
It's the terror of knowing what this world is about
Watching some good friends screaming let me out
Gets me higher pressure on people, people on the streets
Dingbat
if they commented on what is not in the current Jewish canon. (Malachi was designated as the last prophet,
so authors after him were no longer considered for prophethood andtheir writings excluded from the canon.
Ecclesiasticus was, however, included in Greek speaking Jews' canon, the Septuagint, as Sofya Seirakh,
aka Sirach.)
In 1775, Samuel Johnson commented on "the unhappy failure of pious resolves" when he is reported saying, "Sir, hell is paved with good intentions."
https://www.enotes.com/topics/life-samuel-johnson-ll-d/quotes/hell-paved-with-good-intentions
I ask: If so, are New Year's resolutions ill advised?
Opinions on the road to heaven:"
The road to heaven is paved with effort" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27736131/
"The Road to Heaven is Paved with Good Intentions" https://www.joellekjay.com/the-road-to-heaven-is-paved-with-good-intentions/
CDB
> bruce bowser <bruce2...@gmail.com> posted:
>> I wonder where this saying originated? And in what language?
> Facilis descensus Averno, from Virgil, but no mention of intentions.
> I don't know how they found their way into it.
there are some hits for it, but here is a latin version of Book VI with
"Averno". Line 265, IIRC what I read moments ago.
https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen6.shtml
Paul Wolff
--
Paul
bruce bowser
bil...@shaw.ca
bill
Peter Moylan
resolutions. It's one of the few resolutions I've managed to keep.
--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org