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Motive Quotes

Browse 1214 quotes about Motive.

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Motive Quotes

“There is laughter that goes so far as to lose all touch with its motive, and to exist only, grossly, in itself. This is laughter at its best. A man to whom such laughter has often been granted may happen to die in a work-house. No matter. I will not admit that he has failed in life. Another man, who has never laughed thus, may be buried in Westminster Abbey, leaving more than a million pounds overhead. What then? I regard him as a failure.”

MenMayMatterHappensDiesHouseLosesMillionsLaughterRegardLeavingGrantedMotivePoundsBuriedLaughedAnother ManOverheadAbbeyWestminsterWestminster Abbey
Book:And Even Now: And, A Christmas Garland
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“Whatever expenditure is sanctioned - even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish - the ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay. The ministry is (so to speak) the breadwinner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory; just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters.”

PoliticalSpeakWishPayWifeCostGloryDaughterCharityMotiveExtrasStrongestMinistryPhilanthropyExpendituresBreadwinner
Author:Walter Bagehot
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“Going back into the history of a word, very often into Latin, we come back pretty commonly to pictures or models of how things happen or are done. These models may be fairly sophisticated and recent, as is perhaps the case with 'motive' or 'impulse', but one of the commonest and most primitive types of model is one which is apt to baffle us through its very naturalness and simplicity.”

MayDoneHappensCasesTypeModelsSimplicityThings HappenImpulseMotiveLatinPrimitiveSophisticated
Author:J. L. Austin
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“Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for "non-attachment" is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.”

PeopleIfsBelieveHumansHardPainDesireI BelieveWishFeltHuman BeingsAchieveHard WorkRootsSaintPsychologicalTemptationMotiveAttachmentAspireSainthood
Book:Our job is to make life worth living, 1949-1950
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“A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone.”

MenFeelsHas BeensDifferentMightCertainIndividualWiseOne ThingEffectsLonelinessProduceLonelyAddVariousMotiveGreat MenRetirementWise SayingsSolitaryNot Alone
Book:Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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“Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.”

MenImportantSoulHeavenSocialNaturalAnswersInterestingViewsPowerfulInfluenceDesignObjectsCuriosityAffectionExcitedSelfishMysteriousMotiveProvidencePermission
Author:Daniel Boone
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“In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.”

MeanHandsFeltCasesIncreaseExplanationMotiveVisibleConsumptionUnworthyApprehension
Book:BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Premium Collection: 25+ Titles in One Volume: The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Higher Learning in America, The Vested Interests and the Common Man, On the Nature of Capital…: The Theory of the Leisure Class, The Beginning of Ownership, The Preconceptions of Economic Science, The Industrial System and the Captains of Industry, The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx…
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“What I desire of a poem is a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling A poem in the first place should offer us a new perception..bringing into being a new experience Verse is more valuable than prose for its rhythms are faster and more highly organised and lead to greater compexity.”

ShouldFirstsFeelingsDesireUnderstandingClearGreaterOffersPerceptionValuableRhythmFasterMotiveProseVersesNew ExperiencesEvaluationOrganised
Author:Yvor Winters
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“The purpose of formulating [a] conflict as a game is not that of resolving the conflict by 'solving the game.' It is that of displaying the structure of the conflict and thereby exposing features of it that may be concealed by rhetoric. In particular, appreciation of the peculiar structure of some of the so-called mixed - motive conflicts represented nonzero-sum games may change the conflicting parties' perception of their situation.”

MayPurposeGamesPartySituationParticularConflictPerceptionStructureAppreciationFeaturesMotivePeculiarRhetoricConcealedExposing
Author:Anatol Rapoport
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“When you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success.”

WantDesireSocialAbilityEffortPositionPursuitReputationLuxuryImpulseMotiveDreadInfluentialLove Of MoneyWants And DesiresPursuit Of Money
Book:Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887: American literature
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“Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.”

ThinkingWaySaidI CanTermTraditionalMotiveSouthernAssociatesNaiveSuperstitious
Book:Learning The World: A novel of first contact
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“These people also tended to pretend to care deeply about the blind and otherwise disabled. I am sympathetic to the needs of those users, but I can't help but think that those who claimed to speak for the blind were being more than a little disingenuous, just like those Hemp people who present their arguments in terms of their deep and abiding care for the textile industry, when their real motives are ... something else entirely.”

PeopleThinkingNeedsLittlesI CanRealHelpingCareSpeakTermIndustryArgumentBlindMotiveUsersAbidingDisabledSympatheticHempTextilesDisingenuous
Author:Jamie Zawinski
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“Jesus reminds us that prayer is a little like children coming to their parents. Our children come to us with the craziest requests at times! Often we are grieved by the meanness and selfishness in their requests, but we would be all the more grieved if they never came to us even with their meanness and selfishness. We are simply glad that they do come--mixed motives and all.”

IfsChildrenLittlesWould BeJesusParentPrayerOur ChildrenGladSelfishnessMotiveRequestMeannessCraziest
Book:Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Heart's True Home
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“I would like to write a novel, or at least try to write one, although my motives are not entirely pure. For one thing, I get asked about writing novels so much that I feel guilty about never having written one. And although I have no strong desire to write a novel, I would hate not to try. That would just be silly. On the other hand, I hate the idea of slogging through something that turns out to be not good.”

FeelsWritingTryingIdeasHandsDesireHateTurnsStrongNovelWrittenOne ThingPureI HateSillyGuiltyMotiveBeing SillyStrong Desire
Author:Kelly Link
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“In the 'in-itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections', of 'necessity', or of 'psychological non-freedom'; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or 'law'. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed 'in itself', we act once more as we have always acted- mythologically.”

IfsWorldDoeLawPurposeCausesNumbersEffectsProjectsConnectionsPsychologicalSymbolsMotiveRationalitySequenceConstraintsRelativity
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Psychohistory, like psychoanalysis, is a science in which the researcher's feelings are as much or even more a part of his research equipment than his eyes or his hands. Weighing of complex motives can only be accomplished by identification with human actors, the usual suppression of all feeling preached and followed by most "science" simply cripples a psychohistorian as badly as it would cripple a biologist to be forbidden the use of a microscope. The emotional development of a psychohistorian is therefore as much a topic for discussion as his or her intellectual development.”

HumansUseFeelingsHandsEyeActorsEmotionalDevelopmentIntellectualResearchComplexesDiscussionMotiveHis EyesAccomplishedUsualTopicsEquipmentForbiddenPsychoanalysisResearchersIdentificationSuppressionMicroscopesBiologistCripplesWeighingIntellectual DevelopmentEmotional Development
Author:Lloyd deMause
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“The initial motive for developing APL was to provide a tool for writing and teaching. Although APL has been exploited mostly in commercial programming, I continue to believe that its most important use remains to be exploited: as a simple, precise, executable notation for the teaching of a wide range of subjects.”

WritingBelieveHas BeensImportantUseSimpleTeachingSubjectsToolsRemainsWideDevelopingRangeMotiveProgrammingPreciseInitials
Author:Kenneth E. Iverson
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“Party politics in modern democratic society means pandering to a wide variety of different groups and sympathizing with their often quite base motives, such as revenge, power, booty, and spoils, to maintain the necessary level of support.”

MeanDifferentLevelsPartySupportGroupsModernDemocraticWideRevengeVarietyMotiveSpoilDemocratic SocietyBooty
Book:Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion - Second Edition
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“Questioning our own motives, and our own process, is critical to a skeptical and scientific outlook. We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations.”

HumansReasonReligionBeliefProcessRealizingPsychologyAtheismEmotionalCriticalPostsMotiveJustifyQuestioningOutlookComfortingSkepticalDefault
Author:Steven Novella
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“Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations.”

WorldCountryWatchesTroubleSacrificeMankindDutySafetySacredLocalsBelovedMotiveConsiderationHonorablePosterityAgitateBeloved Country
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson
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“I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.”

KnowsWantWritingLooksDesireFameMotiveLook UpDictionary
Book:Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales
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“Charitable endeavour exalts the prestige and the status of the giver. This may sound unduly cynical but as with all philantrophic activity, it is not easy to unravel the mutually reinforcing motives of selflessness and self-interest. All that can safely be said is that most members of the royal family have difficulty distinguishing between concern about society, concern about the social order and concern about what best to do so they can remain at the top of it.”

MaySaidSelfOrderSocialEasySoundInterestActivityMembersConcernDifficultyMotiveCynicalSelflessnessRoyalSelf InterestGiverEndeavourPrestigeCharitableSocial OrderBritish HistoryRoyal Family
Author:David Cannadine
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“Pascal makes no attempt in this most famous argument to show that his Roman Catholicism is true or probably true. The reasons which he suggests for making the recommended bet on his particular faith are reasons in the sense of motives rather than reasons in the sense of grounds. Conceding, if only for the sake of the present argument, that we can have no knowledge here, Pascal tries to justify as prudent a policy of systematic self-persuasion, rather than to provide grounds for thinking that the beliefs recommended are actually true.”

IfsThinkingTryingSelfReasonShowsBeliefAtheismPolicyParticularArgumentSakePositive AtheismMotiveJustifyCatholicismPersuasionFlewSystematicPrudentRoman CatholicPascal
Author:Antony Flew
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“The history of all times and nations teaches us that exactly in the naïve, unshakable belief, furnished by religion in active life of believers, originate the most intense motives for the most significant creative performance, not only in the field of arts and sciences but also in politics.”

ArtBeliefNationsTeachCreativeAtheismFieldsPerformancesPositive AtheismActiveBelieverSignificantIntenseAll TimeMotiveArt And ScienceUnshakableActive Life
Author:Max Planck
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“The illegitimate use of a state by economic interests for their own ends is based upon a preexisting illegitimate power of the state to enrich some persons at the expense of others. Eliminate that illegitimate power of giving differential economic benefits and you eliminate or drastically restrict the motive for wanting political influence.”

GivingPersonsEndsStatesUsePoliticalInterestInfluenceEconomicBenefitsMotiveExpensesPolitical Influence
Book:Anarchy, state, and utopia
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