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Motive Quotes

Browse 1214 quotes about Motive.

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Motive Quotes

“In an age in which we can project an image and score that image based on immediate Facebook and Twitter feedback, thus making a video game of life and a false-reality composed of lies, what gets lost is a joyful obsession with the work we create from the purest of motives, a sheer joy in the act of creation itself that causes us to lose ourselves in something else, and in a way die to ourselves over the absolute love of a thing we are breathing into life.”

WayRealityAgeJoyLyingDiesGamesLostCausesLosesCreationProjectsAbsolutesVideoObsessionBreathingMotiveScoreJoyfulSheerFeedbackSheer JoyAbsolute LoveFalse Reality
Author:Donald Miller
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“Politics of all sorts, I confess, are far beyond my limited powers of comprehension. Those of this country as far as I have been able to observe, resolve themselves into two great motives. The aristocratic desire of elevation and separation, and the democratic desire of demolishing and levelling.”

Has BeensTwoCountryAbleDesireDemocraticSeparationMotiveResolveComprehensionElevationAristocratic
Book:Journal of a Residence in America
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“The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.”

MenMaySelfActionCausesVirtueBearsSelf LovePleaseVicesMotiveDistinctionStrictEmployedInquiryIncline
Book:The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author
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“As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.”

MenHeartMayCountryBodySimpleMoralPrinciplesWonderfulHarmonyClimateComplicatedPursuitImpulseMotiveCustomsGravityVaryCelestialMicrocosmCelestial Bodies
Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
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“I like owls. I admire their intransigent spirit. I have respected them deeply ever since I met a baby owl in a wood, when it fell over dead, apparently from sheer temper, because I dared to approach it. It defied me first, and then died. I have never forgotten the horror and shame I experienced when that soft fluffy thing (towards which I had nothing but the most humanitarian motives) fell dead from rage at my feet.”

FirstsSpiritFeetBabyMetsHorrorApproachDiedShameForgottenWoodsHumanitarianRageAdmireMotiveTemperSheerOwlFluffy
Author:Vita Sackville-West
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“In a promise, what you thought, and not what you said, is always to be considered.”

SaidPromiseMotive
Book:Cicero's Three Books Of Offices, Or Moral Duties: Also His Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age; Laelius, an Essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio's Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the Duties of a Magistrate
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“Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.”

AdviceVanityMotiveAccurateInquiry
Book:Murphy's essay. The rambler. The adventurer. The idler. Rasselas. Tales of the imagination. Letters. Irene. Miscellaneous poems
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“Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.”

WorldHas BeensBornDutyForgivenessMercyEternityForgivingRefuseVainMotiveUrgesThronesForgivenSaviourSuperfluousSuspendedPractiseInaccessible
Book:Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc
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“If there was the same propensity in mankind for investigating the motives, as there is for censuring the conduct, of public characters, it would be found that the censure so freely bestowed is oftentimes unmerited and uncharitable.”

IfsCharacterWould BeFoundMankindMotivePropensityCensureInvestigating
Book:The Writings of George Washington: pt. IV. Letters official and private, from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his life: (v. 10) May, 1789-November, 1794. (v. 11) November, 1794-December, 1799
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“Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law within us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts and duties in which the strongest and best-balanced natures must feel themselves deficient, and where humility no less than prudence prescribes deliberation.”

FeelsLawEnergyPrinciplesHumilityDutyWeaknessMotiveStrongestBalancedSymptomsPrudenceReservedSupplementsDeliberation
Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
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“When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.”

KnowsMenShouldMindTruthPurposeCommonProgressExampleMoonDiseaseSeasonsErrorsCuriosityDetermineCuriousChiefsMotiveEtcRestlessMaladySeasons Change
Book:Pascal's Pensees
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“Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostasy.”

MenWellsLongEnoughActionDealsPrinciplesVirtueToo MuchHonestGuiltVicesWorthyContactMotiveManlyInfamyScrutinizeToo NiceApostasy
Book:The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: On Conciliation with America; Security of the Independence of Parliament; on Mr. Fox's East India
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“Money destroys human roots wherever it is able to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives, because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures.”

MindHumansAbleDesireSimpleEffortClearFiguresDemandGainsRootsManageMotiveSolePenetrate
Book:The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind
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“One little human truth is that opinionated people don't hold much with other people's opinions, and it is a great pleasure to some of them to be able to ascribe incurable defects, such as belonging to a certain sex; or base motives, or lack of understanding, to anyone whose views they disagree with.”

PeopleHumansLittlesAbleCertainSexUnderstandingPleasureViewsOpinionTruth IsMotiveBelongingDisagreeDefectsOpinionatedLack Of Understanding
Author:Katherine Anne Porter
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“There is no hope for the world unless and until we formulate, accept and state publicly a true moral code of individualism, based on man's inalienable right to live for himself. Neither to hurt nor to serve his brothers, but to be independent of them in his function and in his motive. Neither to sacrifice them for himself nor to sacrifice himself for them.”

MenWorldStatesHurtAcceptingMoralSacrificeBrotherFunctionIndependentIndividualityCodeMotiveIndividualismNo HopeMoral Code
Book:Letters of Ayn Rand
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