Gayle Forman Quotes

The Second Rule is that the greatest harm can result from the best intentions. It sounds a paradox, but kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm. The only counter to it is knowledge, wisdom, forethought, and understanding the First Rule. Even then, that is not always enough.

I would say that when you do something out of the goodness of your heart, and you don't know what the repercussions will be, you have to live with that. And it can be devastating. Because the intention was there.

Whatever harm the evil may do, the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.

There's a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it's a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don't want to know are best at.

The welfare state has always been judged by its good intentions, rather than its bad results.

Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.

Hell is full of good intentions and wills.

If you charge off with some political agenda that is not informed by clarity, you are going to end up with business as usual. The road to hell is paved with good intentions but it is not paved with clarity.

It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done.

Good men do the most harm.

My good intentions are completely lethal.

I’m such an idiot - the thing was I was in there because this homeless guy was hungry. I went past and thought ‘I’m going to go in and get him some wedges.’ I was actually doing a good deed. It’s so me to end up the other way around where I’ve done damage.

How many people have damaged their own lives by mistaking enablement for grace?

In history, good intentions do not always make good consequences

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.

It amazes me how easy it is for things to change, how easy it is to start off down the same road you always take and wind up somewhere new. Just one false step, one pause, one detour, and you end up with new friends or a bad reputation or a boyfriend or a breakup. It's never occurred to me before; I've never been able to see it. And it makes me feel, weirdly, like maybe all of these different possibilities exist at the same time, like each moment we live has a thousand other moments layered underneath it that look different.

The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to the bird.

It's not the bad ideas that do you in, but the good ones.

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.

Beware of spitting against the wind!

One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.

You will allow that one's curiosity must be aroused when one learns that a lady is prepared to elope to escape from advances one had not the least intention of making!