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I think he's a man of good intentions. I don't doubt it. But I think he's leading us in the wrong direction.
--
George Soros, in Interview with David Brancaccio (12 September 2003)

 

George W. Bush

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Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually, genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole, of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made, not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.

 

Norman Angell

 

The movement of doubt consisted precisely in this: that at one moment he was supposed to be in the right, the next moment in the wrong, to a degree in the right, to a degree in the wrong, and this was supposed to mark his relationship with God; but such a relationship with God is not relationship, and this was the sustenance of doubt. In his relationship with another person, it certainly was possible that he could be partly in the wrong, partly in the right, to a degree in the wrong, to a degree in the right, because he himself and every human being is finite, and their relationship is a finite relationship that consists in a more or less. Therefore as long as doubt would make the infinite relationship finite, and as long as wisdom would full up the infinite relationship with the finite-just so long he would remain in doubt. Thus every time doubt wants to trouble him about the particular, tell him that he is suffering too much or is being tested beyond his powers, he forget the finite in the infinite, that he is always in the wrong. Every time the cares of doubt want to make him sad, he lifts himself above the finite into the infinite, because this thought, that he is always in the wrong, is the wings upon which he soars over the finite. This is the longing with which he seeks God; this is the love which he finds God.

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

 

One thing in particular struck me when I compared the medical world on which my life now depended with the religious institutions I have been studying so intensively in recent years. One of the gentler, more supportive themes to be found in every religion (so far as I know) is the idea that what really matters is what is in your heart: if you have good intentions, and are trying to do what (God says) is right, that is all anyone can ask. Not so in medicine! If you are wrong —especially if you should have known better — your good intentions count for almost nothing. And whereas taking a leap of faith and acting without further scrutiny of one's options is often celebrated by religions, it is considered a grave sin in medicine. A doctor whose devout faith in his personal revelations about how to treat aortic aneurysm led him to engage in untested trials with human patients would be severely reprimanded if not driven out of medicine altogether. There are exceptions, of course. A few swashbuckling, risk-taking pioneers are tolerated and (if they prove to be right) eventually honored, but they can exist only as rare exceptions to the ideal of the methodical investigator who scrupulously rules out alternative theories before putting his own into practice. Good intentions and inspiration are simply not enough.

 

Daniel C. Dennett

 

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