Citing a phrase in my essay?

Question

Do you have to cite "the road to h**l is paved with good intentions" in an essay? Or is it a common knowledge saying?

Answer 1

Although many people believe that Samuel Johnson said "The road to h**l is paved with good intentions," he shouldn't get credit for this one.

Johnson said something close, but he was following in others' footsteps. In Boswell's Life of Johnson, in an entry marked April 16, 1775, Boswell quotes Johnson as saying (on some other occasion), "h**l is paved with good intentions." Note, no prefatory "the road to..." Boswell's editor, Malone, added a footnote indicating this is a 'proverbial sentence,' and quoting an earlier 1651 source (yet still not in the common wording).

Robert Wilson, in the newsgroup alt.quotations, provided two other sources prior to Johnson. John Ray, in 1670, cited as a proverb "h**l is paved with good intentions." Even earlier than that, it's been attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), as "h**l is full of good intentions or desires." Just how it got to the road to h**l being paved this way, and not h**l itself, I don't know.

Answer 2

The road to h**l can be trapped by means of good actions

and clean heart.

Answer 3

You might want to do some research on that. If it is an actual quote from someone, you will need to cite it. If not, then you can say something like, there's an old saying that says....... In MLA style EVERYTHING must be cited properly to avoid plagarism.