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Motive Quotes

Browse 1214 quotes about Motive.

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Motive Quotes

“When indeed Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force like that of other passions is increased by the sympathy of a multitude. But enthusiasm is only a temporary state of Religion, and whilst it lasts will hardly be seen with pleasure at the helm. Even in its coolest state, it has been much oftener a motive to oppression than a restraint from it.”

Has BeensStatesLastsReligionPassionForcePleasureAtheismOppressionEnthusiasmMotiveTemporaryMultitudesRestraintHelm
Book:Selected Writings of James Madison
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“The prejudice of unfounded belief often degenerates into the prejudice of custom, and becomes at last rank hypocrisy. When men, from custom or fashion or any worldly motive, profess or pretend to believe what they do not believe, nor can give any reason for believing, they unship the helm of their morality, and being no longer honest to their own minds they feel no moral difficulty in being unjust to others.”

MenGivingFeelsMindBelieveReasonLastsReligionBeliefMoralAtheismHonestFashionMoralityDifficultyPrejudiceMotiveHypocrisyCustomsUnjustWorldlyDegeneratesHelm
Book:The Age of Reason, etc
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“Such is the condition of life that something is always wanting to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes, which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age, we have knowledge and prudence, without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes, and regulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.”

AgeAbleSpiritPlansConditionsDesignYouthWarmMotiveSchemesDefeatedPrudenceCompletionPromptsNegligenceInexperienceRashnessGreat Design
Author:Lyndon B. Johnson
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“This life in us; however low it flickers or fiercely burns, is still a divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives never so humane and enlightened; To suppose otherwise is to countenance a death-wish; Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.”

MenShouldStillsLife IsWishCasesDivineCircumstancesLowsAccountsSacredDareThis LifeFlamesMotiveEnlightenedHumanePro LifeCountenanceEuthanasiaFlickerDeath Wish
Book:Something beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta
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“Most people use two totally different sets of criteria for judging themselves versus others. We tend to judge others according to their actions. It's very cut-and-dried. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Even if we do the wrong thing, if we believe our motives were good, we let ourselves off the hook. And we are often willing to do that over and over before requiring ourselves to change.”

PeopleIfsBelieveTwoDifferentUseActionChangeLeadershipCuttingWillingJudgingIntentionMotiveVersusHookCriteriaWrong Things
Book:The Leadership Handbook: 26 Critical Lessons Every Leader Needs
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“The moment one starts sharing one`s being without any motive life becomes a sweet fragrance. It is all honey. Then everything remains the same, yet nothing is the same any more. When your heart beats in harmony, in love, in joy, when you are no longer greedy, when there are no desires and no ambitions, and when there are no ego trips any more, one is simply, ordinary, but sweet. That taste is the taste of god.”

HeartMomentsJoyDesireSweetTasteEgoAmbitionBeatsOrdinaryHarmonyRemainsMotiveHoneyGreedyFragranceHeart BeatEgo Trip
Author:Rajneesh
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“Be creative in that sense and your creativity will become an offering to God. God has given you so many gifts, Garima; something HAS to be done just in deep thankfulness. But remember: with no motive, not as a means but as an end unto itself. Art for art's sake, and creation for creation's sake, and love for love's sake, and prayer for prayer's sake.”

MeanArtEndsDoneRememberGivenPrayerCreativityCreativeCreationAnd LoveSakeMotiveOfferingBe CreativeThankfulnessOffering To God
Author:Rajneesh
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“Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.”

MenActionPassionPrinciplesEvery ManMotiveCognitive Behavioral Therapy
Book:A Treatise on Man, His Intellectual Faculties and His Education: A Posthumous Work of M. Helvetius. Translated from the French, with Additional Notes, by W. Hooper, ...
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“To obtain the pure silence necessary for the disciple, the heart and emotions, the brain and its intellectualisms, have to be put aside. Both are but mechanisms, which will perish with the span of man's life. It is the essence beyond, that which is the motive power, and makes man live, that is now compelled to rouse itself and act.”

MenHeartEmotionBrainSilenceAwarenessPureEssenceMotiveMechanismDiscipleCompelledIntellectualism
Book:Light on the Path
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“The fundamental characteristic of the scientific method is honesty. In dealing with any question, science asks no favors. ... I believe that constant use of the scientific method must in the end leave its impress upon him who uses it. ... A life spent in accordance with scientific teachings would be of a high order. It would practically conform to the teachings of the highest types of religion. The motives would be different, but so far as conduct is concerned the results would be practically identical.”

BelieveDifferentEndsUseWould BeScienceOrderAsksI BelieveResultsTeachingHonestyTypeHighestConcernedAccountsMethodFundamentalsConstantFavorsMotiveCharacteristicsImpressConformIdenticalScientific Method
Author:Ira Remsen
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“The habit of employing self-deception to maintain one's self esteem has often become so ingrained that the first step to developing accurate self-awareness is honest acknowledgment of the existence of hidden emotions, motives and tendencies in the mind without immediately suppressing them.”

MindFirstsSelfEmotionExistenceStepsHonestAwarenessSelf EsteemHonestyHabitSelf AwarenessTendenciesEsteemDevelopingDeceptionMotiveFirst StepsAccurateSelf DeceptionAcknowledgmentEmployingSuppressing
Author:Bhikkhu Analayo
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“The Unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem ("It's simple; it's broke.") to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution.”

MindFirstsDifferentRealEndsProblemBigsSeemsMovingScienceSimpleEconomyGreaterSolutionsSimplicitySeedsBarsInventionBrokeMotiveUnexpectedFarmsFarmersAestheticBootsEfficiencySteelBentBladesInventorRelentlessStalkingHavocCuttersTinkeringVagrants
Author:Verlyn Klinkenborg
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“The motive for purifying yourself - that you feel spiritually impure - will prevent any genuine gain until you learn to love the impurity you started with. Can any being seriously think that he is going to pass through the infinity of time without ever making another mistake? Quite often a flash of enlightenment will give you this message: Go back to where you started and learn to love it more.”

ThinkingGivingFeelsSpiritualMistakeMessagesEnlightenmentGainsGenuineMotiveInfinityFlashImpurityPurifying
Book:The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment
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“Christ wishes the Christian Community to be a body that is perfect because we work together towards a single end, and the higher the motive which actuates this collaboration the higher, no doubt, will be the union. Now the end in question is supremely exalted: the continuous sanctification of the Body for the glory of God and the Lamb that was slain [Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament].”

EndsBodyChristianTogetherJesusWishChristCommunityPerfectDoubtHigherGloryBlessedUnionsMotiveNo DoubtWorking TogetherCollaborationSacramentsLambsGlory Of GodExaltedSanctificationBlessed SacramentChristian Community
Author:Katharine Drexel
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“I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive then I believe you are better off not doing it. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”

IfsBelieveI CanMotivationalFunI BelieveBusinessGoneCreativeExerciseInstinctHonestlyMaking MoneyMotiveSoleBetter OffInvolvingMotivational Business
Book:Losing my virginity: how I've survived, had fun, and made a fortune doing business my way
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“I can now state that I have succeeded in operating a motive device by means of [cosmic rays]. I will tell you in the most general way, the cosmic ray ionizes the air, setting free many charges - ions and electrons. These charges are captured in a condenser which is made to discharge through the circuit of the motor.”

WayMeanMadeI CanStatesEnergyAirSettingSettingsMotiveDevicesRaysCosmicMotorCapturedCircuitsDischargeElectronsIonsCosmic Rays
Author:Nikola Tesla
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“The butterfly's attractiveness derives not only from colors and symmetry: deeper motives contribute to it. We would not think them so beautiful if they did not fly, or if they flew straight and briskly like bees, or if they stung, or above all if they did not enact the perturbing mystery of metamorphosis: the latter assumes in our eyes the value of a badly decoded message, a symbol, a sign.”

IfsThinkingEyeBeautifulValuesMysteryColorMessagesAssumingDeeperSymbolsMotiveLatterButterflyBeesFlewMetamorphosisSymmetryAttractivenessLike A ButterflyMonarch ButterflyBeautiful Butterfly
Author:Primo Levi
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“Those who keep the masses of men in subjection by exercising force and cruelty deprive them at once of two vital foods, liberty and obedience; for it is no longer within the power of such masses to accord their inner consent to the authority to which they are subjected. Those who encourage a state of things in which the hope of gain is the principle motive take away from men their obedience, for consent which is its essence is not something which can be sold.”

MenTwoStatesForceLibertyPrinciplesExerciseAuthorityMassEthicsGainsEssenceCrueltyObedienceMotiveConsentAccordSubjection
Author:Simone Weil
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“You'd better discover a more important motive than publication for your work or else you'll go crazy. My sense is that you'll be writers only if you are convinced that to write is something for which there is no substitute in your life. You must therefore be ambitious for your work rather than for its promotion. The good news here is that if you assign secondary importance to publishing and primary to writing itself, you will write better, and will thus increase your odds of getting publishing.”

IfsWritingImportantCrazyNewsImportanceIncreaseConvincedPrimariesMotiveSubstitutesAmbitiousOddsPublishingGood NewsPromotionPublication
Author:Sydney Lea
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“I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.”

ThinkingWritingMatterAgeAttitudeKnowingSubjectsEmotionalDevelopmentDeterminedMotiveSubject MatterKnowing Something
Book:A Collection of Essays
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“The main propoganda trick of supporters of the allegedly "progressive" policy of government control is to blame capitalism for all that is unsatisfactory in present-day conditions and to extol the blessings of socialism. They have never attempted to prove their fallacious dogmas, all they did was to call their adversaries names and cast suspicion upon their motives. And, unfortunately, the average citizen cannot see through these stratagems. The liars must be afraid of the truth and are therefore driven to suppress its pronouncement.”

PhilosophyGovernmentPoliticalNamesConditionsPolicyCitizensBlessingProveCapitalismEconomicsBlameAverageCastsDrivenTricksSocialismMotiveLiarsProgressiveDogmaSuspicionSupporterAdversariesPresent DayStratagem
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“If we use our fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful, and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations. The heat of the sun's rays represents an immense amount of energy vastly in excess of waterpower...The sun's energy controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land.”

IfsUsePurposeEnergyInterestSunGenerationsLandAmountRiversTransformationMethodClimate ChangeDesertHeatMotiveFuelLakesControlledRaysExcessImmenseLiving OnExhaustingFertileLakes And RiversHeat Of The Sun
Author:Nikola Tesla
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“The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head and he picks it up and buy victuals with it, the physical effect is good. But with respect to me the action is very wrong.”

IfsActionHalfBreakEffectsDependsMoralityPicksIntentionMotiveCrownsBeggarFling
Book:The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
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“The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field - the object is attained - and it now remains to be my earnest wish & prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.”

StatesUseWishReligiousFreedomPrayerUnitedLibertyUnited StatesWiseFieldsObjectsCitizensBlessingRemainsMotiveEstablishmentVirtuousEarnestReligious Liberty
Book:The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799
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