It’s a bit strange how the meaning of the well-known phrase “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” has been so twisted. People often take it far too literally—or completely misunderstand it. It’s not saying that good intentions inevitably lead to hell, nor that every good intention secretly masks a selfish or harmful motive. And certainly not the oversimplified: “Do something nice, and you’ll get betrayed.” That’s not what this is about.
And yet, I’ve heard people say this—people I know personally—almost proudly. “I did everything for him, and he screwed me over… Good intentions, huh?” I’m not even going to dive into the topic of giving with expectations. That’s another discussion entirely.
So what does the phrase mean?
The key word here isn’t good. It’s intentions. There’s nothing wrong with good. Good is, well, good. The problem is when good intentions remain just that—intentions. The phrase goes back centuries. As early as the 12th century, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was quoted as saying that “hell is full of good wishes or desires.” In English, the phrase first appears in John Ray’s 1670 collection of proverbs, and it was later echoed by Samuel Johnson in the 18th century, who famously remarked, “Hell is paved with good intentions.”
These thinkers were not attacking goodness. They were pointing to a human tendency: the seductive comfort of feeling righteous just by intending something noble—without ever doing it.
Because here’s what often happens: a person is struck by a kind or generous impulse. They feel uplifted by it. That emotional glow, the moral satisfaction—it tricks the brain. The person begins to believe they’ve done something good simply by feeling or intending it. But nothing actually changes in the world. No action is taken. No one is helped.
That’s where the problem lies. The danger isn’t in bad intentions. It’s in the gap between a good idea and the lack of follow-through. A mind full of good impulses with no real-world outcome becomes a kind of paved road… and, metaphorically or spiritually, that road leads downward. It doesn’t matter how golden the bricks are if they never reach anyone.
This is why the theologian George Herbert later paraphrased the thought in the 17th century as: “Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.” Similarly, the Apostle James wrote in his epistle, “faith without works is dead.” Belief, goodness, and values mean little when they don’t translate into action.
So you must act. Immediately. If you want to help people—help them. If you want to feed the hungry—buy the food and deliver it. If you want to protect animals—rescue them, support shelters, or fund those who do. Intentions only count when they’re put into motion.
And the same law applies to a person’s own life. The more gifts you’ve been given—talents, skills, education—the more will be asked of you. And the more intentions you let sit unrealized, the heavier your soul can become with regret. You’ll look back one day and see the road you walked. It will be well-paved. But where did it lead?
I don’t need a theology degree to know what that feels like. Even as someone who didn’t grow up religious, I understood this phrase deeply by the age of 11. Because you don’t have to believe in a literal hell to recognize what it means to feel its breath. It’s the ache of time passing, potential unused, intentions never acted on. That, to me, is its own kind of hell.
I wish every young person could feel this truth early—before the regrets pile up like bricks. Before the shimmer of unrealized dreams becomes the yellow road that leads nowhere good.
