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Motive Quotes

Browse 1214 quotes about Motive.

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Motive Quotes

“Not rarely, and this is especially true of wives and mothers, the motive behind assuming a disproportionate share of work and responsibility is completely unselfish. We want to protect, to spare those of whom we are fond. We forget that, regardless of the motive, the results of such action are almost always destructive and unproductive.”

WantActionMotherForgetResultsBehindsResponsibilityWifeShareProtectAssumingMotherhoodMotiveDestructiveSparesUnselfishUnproductiveWives And Mothers
Author:Hortense Odlum
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“State censorship presents itself as a bulwark between society and forces of subversion or moral corruption. To dismiss this account of its own motives by the state as insincere would be a mistake: it is a feature of the paranoid logic of the censoring mentality that virtue ... must be innocent, and therefore, unless protected, vulnerable to the wiles of vice.”

StatesWould BeForceMistakeMoralVirtueLogicAccountsVicesCorruptionInnocentVulnerableFeaturesMotiveCensorshipMentalityProtectedParanoidSubversionCensoringInsincereMoral Corruption
Author:J. M. Coetzee
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“What if a man save my life with a draught that was prepared to poison me? The providence of the issue does not at all discharge the obliquity of the intent. And the same reason holds good even in religion itself. It is not the incense, or the offering that is acceptable to God, but the purity and devotion of the worshipper.”

IfsMenDoeReasonIssuesPreparedDevotionMotivePoisonPurityWhat IfAcceptableOfferingProvidenceDischargeIncenseWorshippersDraught
Author:Seneca the Younger
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“We are not fond of praising, and never praise any one except from interested motives. Praise is a clever, concealed, and delicate flattery, which gratifies in different ways the giver and the receiver. The one takes it as a recompense of his merit, and the other bestows it to display his equity and discernment.”

WayDifferentPraiseCleverDifferent WaysMeritMotiveDelicateDisplayFlatteryEquityGiverDiscernmentConcealedReceiverRecompense
Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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“The time which passes over our heads so imperceptibly makes the same gradual change in habits, manners and character, as in personal appearance. At the revolution of every five years we find ourselves another and yet the same;--there is a change of views, and no less of the light in which we regard them; a change of motives as well as of action.”

YearsWellsCharacterLightActionTimeViewsFiveRevolutionHabitRegardAppearanceMannersMotiveFive YearsPersonal AppearanceGradual Change
Book:Waverley Novels
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“I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake.”

MeanSoulSelfReasonFallEvilObjectsGainsDestructionShameSakeSeekingRuinsFallenMotiveNo ReasonWickednessFoulShamefulSelf DestructionDepravedFirmament
Book:The Confessions
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“The common ground where the activities of God and man become one is the motive of perfect love; for in the last resolve love is the essence of God's nature. When he thinks, love is his thought; when he wills, love is the product of his will. To the degree, therefore, that man thinks and wills the good--to the degree that he realizes love in his finite dealings--he interfuses himself with God.”

ThinkingMenLastsRealizingPerfectLove IsCommonProductsActivityDegreesEssenceMotiveResolveFiniteCommon GroundDealingsPerfect Love
Author:Frank C. Lockwood
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“The attendant on William Rufus, who discharged at a deer an arrow, which glanced against a tree and killed the king, was no murderer, because he had no such design. And, on the other hand, a man who should lie in wait to assassinate another, and pull the trigger of a gun with that intent, would be morally a murderer, not the less though the gun should chance to miss fire.”

MenShouldHandsWould BeLyingWaitingChanceFireTreeMissingDesignKingsGunMotiveMurdererArrowsTriggersDeer
Book:Introductory Lessons on Morals, and Christian Evidences
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“I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who "do not write for money." It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working woman, and always had to be.”

PeopleWritingKindCareAbleClassProudPrivilegeBreatheEnvyCraftsMotivePleasantHopelessLegendsSpheresDelicateWho CaresTranscendentWorking Women
Author:Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
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“The earth has been cultivated before it has been divided; the cultivation itself having been the only motive for a division, and for that law which secures to every one his property. For the first persons who have employed themselves in cultivation, have probably worked as much land as their strength would permit, and, consequently, more than was necessary for their own nourishment.”

FirstsPersonsHas BeensEarthLawLandPropertyMotiveDivisionDividedPermitEmployedNourishmentFirst PersonCultivation
Author:Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune
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“I am not fighting machinery as such, but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of the human race, but for all. I will not have the enrichment of a few at the expense of the community. At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of this minority is not humanity or love of their kind, but greed and avarice.”

ThinkingMenWantHumansKindHelpingHumanityDiesFightingForceCommunityRaceStreetsMassLaborMachinesMadnessEnvironmentalGreedHungerEmploymentSecureHuman RaceMotiveMinoritiesExpensesSustainabilityExploitationMachineryAvariceLivelihoodEnrichment
Author:Mahatma Gandhi
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“It is not the bigness of anything in this kind that can hinder its motion, if the motive faculty be answerable thereunto. We see a great ship swims as well as a small cork, and an eagle flies in the air as well as a little gnat. 'Tis likely enough that there may be means invented of journeying to the Moon; and how happy they shall be that are first successful in this attempt.”

IfsFirstsWellsKindMayMeanLittlesEnoughSuccessfulAirMoonShipsMotiveAviationFacultySwimPredictionsEaglesHinderCorkGnats
Author:John Wilkins
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“I don't see much of a future for this planet. I think it's a cursed planet. The boundaries we've drawn between nations and the profit motive - those two factors have, in my opinion, brought us to the point where almost nothing can stop the utter destruction of the environment and all our earthly life-support systems.”

ThinkingTwoNationsOpinionSupportEnvironmentPlanetsDestructionProfitBoundariesFactorsMotiveCursedSupport SystemsProfit Motive
Author:George Carlin
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“In this state of total consumerism-which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves-all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”

PeopleThinkingIdeasStatesEarthTermBrokenOffersForgottenMeaningfulContactMotiveConsumerismHelplessDependenceOverconsumption
Book:The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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“This faith in themselves was in the hearts of our ancestors, this faith in themselves was the motive power that pushed them forward and forward in the march of civilisation, and if there has been degeneration, if there has been defect, mark my words, you will find that degeneration to have started on the day our people lost faith in themselves.”

PeopleIfsHeartHas BeensFaithLostMarkMotiveMarchAncestorDefectsCivilisationDegenerationLost Faith
Book:Swami Vivekananda's Rousing Call to Hindu Nation
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