The primacy of intention stems from the fact that one and the same action – we are not saying every action – may be good or bad according to the intention, whereas the inverse is not true: an intention is not good or bad according to the action. It is not actions that matter primarily, but rather intentions, as common sense as well as traditional wisdom tell us; however, it goes without saying that this could not mean, as some people imagine, that every imperfect or even bad action can be excused by supposing that the intention was good or even by arguing that every intention is basically good merely because it is subjective and that, according to some people, subjectivity is always right . . . and also that subjectivity has priority over objective reality; whereas “there is no right superior to that of the truth.” [GTUFS: PlayMasks, On Intention]

The fixed idea that the argument of intention is a panacea has become so habitual that too many people abuse it without reflecting, by protesting their good intention in cases where the question of intention could not even arise. Quite generally, it is all too clear that good intentions in no way constitute a guarantee of a man’s worth, nor even, consequently, of his salvation; in this sense, intention is worthy only through its actualization.* (*As the German – or the analogous English – proverb has it: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” (Der Weg zur Holle ist mit guten Vorsatzen gepflastert); doubtless they derive from this saying of Ecclesiasticus (21:10): “The way of sinners is smoothly paved with stones, but at its end is the pit of Hades.” And according to the Epistle of Saint James (4:17), “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”) [GTUFS: PlayMasks, On Intention]

Intention determines not only actions, but obviously also moral attitudes. There is a humility, a charity and a sincerity – but these are then merely appearances – stemming from hypocrisy, hence properly from satanism, namely: egalitarian and demagogic humility, humanistic and basically bitter charity, and cynical sincerity. There are false virtues whose motives are basically to demonstrate to oneself that one has no need of God; the sin of pride consists here in believing that our virtues are our property and not a gift of Heaven; which is all the more wrong in that, in this case, the virtues are imaginary, since pride perverts them. [GTUFS: PlayMasks, On Intention]