Daily Inspiration Quote by E. Stanley Jones

Jones is smuggling a moral checklist into what sounds like a calm piece of psychology. "Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence" lands like a tidy equation, but the subtext is sharper: character is not fate, impulse is not an excuse, and goodness is not just about having a warm heart. You are accountable for what you meant to do, and you are accountable for how well you thought it through.

The pairing matters. "Intentions" speaks to the interior life Jones, as a theologian, cared about: motives, desires, the direction of the will. But he refuses to let intention do all the work, because pious motives can still produce harm. "Intelligence" functions as an ethical demand for discernment: to anticipate consequences, to learn, to recognize complexity, to admit when you are out of your depth. He’s quietly insisting that morality includes competence.

Context helps explain the firmness. Jones wrote and preached in a century of mass movements, colonial entanglements, and modern technologies that amplified human impact. In that world, good intentions were a common alibi for destructive projects, including religious ones. His sentence pushes back against sentimental spirituality: righteousness without clarity becomes danger; cleverness without intention becomes manipulation.

The line also carries a pastoral edge. If actions flow from intention and intelligence, then change is possible without mystique. You can examine your motives. You can educate your conscience. Jones offers a spiritual program disguised as a simple causal claim: the way to live differently is to want differently and to think better.