Motives Quotes

If you worry less about what people think of you, you can pick up an astonishing amount of information about them. You no longer leave conversations wondering what just happened. Other people's minds and motives are finally revealed. ~ Pamela Druckerman

Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart,
while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles there little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest,
affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion. ~ Henry Fielding

Who am I to know my own motives. But I did foolhardy things. ~ Thomas Pynchon

He carries around a notebook where he keeps a list of suspects and motives so the police will have leads if he ever turns up murdered ~ Stephanie Tromly

If I give with the motive to get, regardless of the degree to which that motive besets me, I will walk away impoverished and I will leave those to whom I have given just as impoverished as I have now found myself. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Of course the Catholic ethic was an ethic of intentions. But the concrete intentio of the single act determined its value. And the single good or bad action was credited to the doer determining his temporal and eternal fate. Quite realistically the Church recognized that man was not an absolutely clearly defined unity to be judged one way or the other, but that his moral life was normally subject to conflicting motives and his action contradictory. ~ Max Weber

Oh, very simple," Derek jeered. "It doesn't matter that I was born a bastard. She deserves nothing better than a man with a false name, fine clothes, and a sham accent. It's not important that I have no family and no religion. I don't believe in sacred causes, or honor, or unselfish motives. I can't be innocent enough for her. I never was. But why should that matter to her? ~ Lisa Kleypas

We make a great fuss about national conscience, but it consists mainly in insisting upon everyone ascribing our national policy to highly moral motives, rather than in examining what our motives really are. ~ Joan Robinson

The fear of punishment may be necessary to the suppression of vice; but it also suspends the finer motives of virtue. ~ William Hazlitt

The horror of Gandhi's murder lies not in the political motives behind it or in its consequences for Indian policy or for the future of non-violence; the horror lies simply in the fact that any man could look into the face of this extraordinary person and deliberately pull a trigger. ~ Mary McCarthy

Making life changing decisions are never easy but are a very important part of life. Some people will not like your decision and some may even get emotionally hurt. Ultimately it all comes back to what decisions are best for you. Remember this is "Your" life in which God gave you. So seek unbiased advice and not yes men, nor people attempting to influence your decision based on their motives. I heard a pastor once say " God did not call you to be unhappy to make others happy" you are not responsible for others happiness, but you are responsible for your own happiness -Live out your Dreams- ~ Augusta DeJuan Hathaway

But Scripture says that before they even entered Egypt, Abraham discussed with Sarah the dangers this place posed for a man with a beautiful wife. "When the Egyptians see you...they will say, "this is his wife"; and they will kill me, but they will let you live," he told her (Gen.12:12) Abraham's motives were selfish and cowardly, and the scheme reflected a serious weakness in faith. But Sarah's devotion to her husband is nonetheless commendable, and God honored her for it. ~ John F. MacArthur Jr.

War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives. ~ Immanuel Kant

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away. ~ Charles W. Chesnutt

I figure...

...that the people are now more deeply conscious than ever before in history of the existence and functioning principles of universal, inexorable physical laws; of the pervading, quietly counseling truth within each and every one of us; of the power of love; and--each man by himself--of his own developing, dynamic relationship with his own conception of the Almightiness of the All-Knowing.

...that our contemporaries just don't wear their faith on their sleeves anymore.

...that people have removed faith from their sleeves because they found out for themselves that faith is much too important for careless display. Now they are willing to wait out the days and years for the truthful events, encouraged individually from within; and the more frequently the dramatic phrases advertising love, patriotism, fervent belief, morals, and good fellowship are plagiarized, appropriated and exhibited in the show windows of the world by the propaganda whips for indirect and ulterior motives, no matter how meager the compromise--the more do people withdraw within themselves and shun taking issue with the nauseating perversions, though eternally exhibiting quiet indifference, nonchalance or even cultivating seemingly ignorant acceptance. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Attitude is a state of mind that results in an action taken or an
emotion displayed. Attitude, in the end, is a motivator or that which
generates or reflects motives. ~ Reid A. Ashbaucher

For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually do not act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives, they actively educate themselves about women's reality by seeking out women's culture and listening to women…. They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…. When they err - and they do err - they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men's misogynist behavior, even when women are not present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own. Perhaps most amazingly, Good Men perceive the value of a feminist practice for themselves, and they advocate it not because it's politically correct, or because they want women to like them, or even because they want women to have equality, but because they understand that male privilege prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world…. They offer proof that men can change. ~ Bell Hooks

One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person. ~ Blaise Pascal

On the whole, I wonder'd much how such a man came to be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great army; but, having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining, and motives for giving places, my wonder is diminished. ~ Benjamin Franklin

That brought the smile back to the old woman's face. "This one at least is honest," she announced, "but you, ser ... I have known a dozen Westerosi knights and a thousand adventurers of the same ilk, but none so pure as you would paint yourself. Men are beasts, selfish and brutal. However gentle the words, there are always darker motives underneath. I do not trust you, ser. ~ George R R Martin

The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil. ~ Ernest Becker

I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen
and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other ... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies. ~ Emil Cioran

If capitalism had never existed, any honest humanitarian should have been struggling to invent it. But when you see men struggling to evade its existence, to misrepresent its nature, and to destroy its last remnants - you maybe sure that whatever their motives, love of man is not one of them. ~ Ayn Rand

I value science
none can prize it more,
It gives ten thousand motives to adore:
Be it religious, as it ought to be,
The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee. ~ Abraham Coles

Was she not so simple and free of ulterior motives as she looked? Well, neither was I. ~ Saul Bellow

The culturalization of politics analytically vanquishes political economy, states, history, and international and transnational relations. It eliminates colonialism, capital, caste or class stratification, and external political domination from accounts of political conflict or instability. In their stead, "culture" is summoned to explain the motives and aspirations leading to certain conflicts ~ Wendy Brown

Formerly, a nation that broke the peace, did not trouble to try and prove to the world that it was done solely from higher motives ... Now war has a bad conscience. Now every nation assures us that it is bleeding for a human cause, the fate of which hangs in the balance of its victory ... No nation dares to admit the guilt of blood before the world. ~ Ellen Key

A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don't take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well. ~ Harper Lee

Quote from my future book "Beyond the Absurd":
"Psychologists have finally proven that the entire justice system's deep motives and its idea as a whole, which have existed for thousands of years, are completely false, since they rest upon empty human delusions. Namely, the delusion that people can control or change the future and win over the evil that has already taken place. According to the studies, this is impossible, since it's the evil of the moment that makes the world go round and this is a fixed constant". ~ Alexandar Tomov

When one has extensively pondered about men, as a career or as a vocation, one sometimes feels nostalgic for primates. At least they do not have ulterior motives. ~ Albert Camus

The matter of sedition is of two kinds: much poverty and much discontentment....The causes and motives of sedition are, innovation in religion; taxes; alteration of laws and customs; breaking of privileges; general oppression; advancement of unworthy persons, strangers; dearths; disbanded soldiers; factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth them in a common cause.' The cue of every leader, of course, is to divide his enemies and to unite his friends. 'Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions...that are adverse to the state, and setting them at a distance, or at least distrust, among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies; for it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the state be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be entire and united.' A better recipe for the avoidance of revolutions is an equitable distribution of wealth: 'Money is like muck, not good unless it be spread.' But this does not mean socialism, or even democracy; Bacon distrusts the people, who were in his day quite without access to education; 'the lowest of all flatteries is the flattery of the common people;' and 'Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss?' What Bacon wants is first a yeomanry of owning farmers; then an aristocracy for administration; and above all a philosopher-king. 'It is almost without instance that any government was unprosperous under learned gove ~ Will Durant

It is with no doubt that there is trouble in every household, but I do not see the motive behind labelling each other as "narcissists" only after separation has occurred. ~ Mwanandeke Kindembo

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. ~ Mother Teresa

If ... deceit is fundamental to animal communication, then there must be strong selection to spot deception and this ought, in turn, to select for a degree of self-deception, rendering some facts and motives unconscious so as not to betray - by the subtle signs of self-knowledge - the deception being practiced.' Thus, 'the conventional view that natural selection favors nervous systems which produce ever more accurate images of the world must be a very naive view of mental evolution. ~ Robert Trivers

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives - altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. ~ Richard J. Foster

I sometimes think I should like to give up business entirely. The care and worriment attending large business interests are very great, but besides that fact the manner in which motives are impugned and characters assailed is most unpleasant ~ Jay Gould

I'm never going to tell the reader what to believe; I'm going to examine these characters that believe different ways, and examine their motives. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

And then there's Israel - a lot of people support Israel, and it's important to Israel to take out Iraq. So it's all mixed together. It's a combination of motives. ~ Chris Matthews

I have no aspiration here to reclaim mystery and paradox from whatever territory they might inhabit, for there is, indeed, often a killing in a kiss, a mercy in the slap that heats your face . . . There is, nevertheless, a particular poverty in those alloplasts who, addressing tragedy, seek to subdistinguish motives beyond those we have best, because nearest, at hand, and so it is with love and hate--emotions upon whose necks, whether wrung or wreathed, may be found the oldest fingerprints of man. A simple truth intrudes: the basic instincts of every man to every man are known. But who knows when or where or how? For the answers to such questions, summon Augurello, your personal jurisconsult and theological wiseacre, to teach you about primal reality and then to dispel those complexities and cabals you crouch behind in this sad, psychiatric century you call your own. It is the anti-labyrinths of the world that scare. Here is a story for you. Your chair. ~ Alexander Theroux

We would often be ashamed of our best actions if the world only knew the motives behind them. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

There are only three motives for all crimes. Tibbs: money, power, and love. Sometimes those things get muddled together, of course, and you could argue that hunger is a bloody good motivator as well, but one might lump that in with love of self or love of others or love of food, and---well, never mind all that. Pass the pickled radishes. - Inspector Percival Pensive, The Case of the Gilded Guardian ~ Jessica Lawson

Every encounter with human truth - Jane Austen deftly showing how little we know our own motives; Dickens revealing the meaning of "economy" in the cheerful and charitable housekeeping of Esther Summerson, his finest heroine; or Shakespeare offering us the foolish Lear, mad and childish and yet "every inch a king" - can expand the soul; it helps to set us free from the common delusions of our time, the lies we believe and the lies we tell. But ~ Anthony M. Esolen

All I have to tell you about is what I have heard and seen of Jesus, how He is helping me find freedom, to occasionally love other people, and even accept myself with all my mixed motives. ~ Keith Miller

Are you publicly or privately shy?

If you are publicly shy, you will agree with the following types of statements that focus on how others view you.

-I'm concerned about my style of doing things.
-I worry about my appearance.
-I want to make a good impression.

If you are privately shy, you will agree with the following types of statements that focus on how you view yourself.

-I'm always trying to figure myself out.
-I constantly scrutinize my feelings and motives.
-I notice changes in my mood easily. ~ Heather Moehn

All impediments in fancy's course Are motives of more fancy. ~ William Shakespeare

Doing business in the digital age is predicated on doing the business of humanity well. ~ Dale Carnegie

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately all the little determining motives, you break them one after another, and you say: that is all! Wind them and twist them together, they become an enormity. ~ Victor Hugo

Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the words of the person casting the bad judgment. ~ Suzy Kassem

The "omnivore's dilemma" (a term coined by Paul Rozin) is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. Omnivores therefore go through life with two competing motives: neophilia (an attraction to new things) and neophobia (a fear of new things). People vary in terms of which motive is stronger, and this variation will come back to help us in later chapters: Liberals score higher on measures of neophilia (also known as "openness to experience"), not just for new foods but also for new people, music, and ideas. Conservatives are higher on neophobia; they prefer to stick with what's tried and true, and they care a lot more about guarding borders, boundaries, and traditions. ~ Jonathan Haidt

I knew I should have been more worried about her motives. ~ R.K. Lilley

The man had a smart mouth, a hard body, and questionable motives. In short, he was exactly what made her panties melt. ~ Avery Flynn

Criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is therefore, read by the discerning, not to discover the merits of an author, but the motives of his critic. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

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. ~ Antony Flew

Resolutely ignoring Banu's dark mutterings, steeling herself against the barrage of harsh words that questioned her motives, her upbringing, and her morality ~ Thrity Umrigar

I well remember it being said to me by an occultist of great experience that two things are necessary for safety in occultism, right motives and right associates. ~ Dion Fortune

It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity ... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods. ~ George Santayana

British journalists tend to believe that people who become good at something do so because they seek fame and fortune. This is because these are the sole motives of people who become British journalists. But some people, operating at higher levels of mental health, pursue activities because they actually love them. ~ John Cleese

In every bad situation we have to see Satan's motives behind a person's actions ~ Sunday Adelaja

Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don't want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a POLITICAL purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally. ~ George Orwell

Have you fallen into the world's trap, following its self-indulgent goals and driven by its self-centered motives? It can happen without you even being aware of it. Make sure Christ is first in your life, and make it your goal to live according to His Word. ~ Billy Graham

Narrative storytelling enables us to derive ideas from the disparate facts, incongruent motives, conflicting emotions, and other absurdities inherent in living dynamically. The narrative that we select to tell our life story acts as a lens that assigns value to our shape shifting experiences: it pulls humor from catastrophes; it places a patina of irony over our checkered history; it allows us to explore our pessimism; and it provides a platform from which vantage point we can optimistically view the future. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

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. ~ John C. Maxwell

Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychological motives and needs upon existing institutions. ~ Emma Goldman

Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them.
But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred. ~ Theodore J. Kaczynski

Every time I catch myself trying to figure out other people's motives, I'll stop and ask myself: "What did I say or do that prompted the action? Why did I react to it as I did? Does what happened make a major difference to me, or am I making something big out of a trifle?"
Leave off that excessive desire of knowing; therein is found much distraction There are many things the knowledge of which is of little or no profit to the soul. ~ Thomas A Kempis

I have to blame myself for not finding any way of reaching him, but I can't feel that either Ruth or I had anything much to do with his corruption.
His personal motives were freedom and pleasure, and he misread them both. ~ Wallace Stegner

I always have a high regard for the individual and have an insuperable distaste for violence and clubmanship. All these motives made me into a passionate pacifist and anti-militarist. I am against any nationalism, even in the guise of mere patriotism. Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as did any exaggerated personality cult. ~ Albert Einstein

Men killing other men really is an extraordinary phenomenon. Why does it happen? And how long has it gone on? And have the motives changed? ~ John Keegan

He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?"
and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?
"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it. ~ Jane Austen

Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy. ~ Alexander MacLaren

she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply, ~ Stephen King

Nostalgia for people, cultures, everything. There's an ability to use these marks to note things that are erased, deleted. Traces are a species of history, of evidence. It's a way for the way the narrator to construct a semblance of self, even though all of this creates a deception, a way to think of one's traces as a real way to define oneself. The trace is fallible, impermanent. It's one of the motives I had in mind throughout the text. ~ Sergio Chejfec

What the biblical narrative tells me – and, in particular the account of Christ's passion- is that while I may not be able to trace the artists hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. He is the one I can shout at, cry with and find comfort in. His heart, if not all his ways, is clear to me because the cross wore it on his sleeve for all to see. This God is able to sympathise with those who suffer not simply because his is 'all knowing' - an attribute ascribed to any version of divinity - because he has experienced pain first hand. ~ John Dickson

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication. ~ Abraham Maslow

When the motives of artists are profound, when they are at their work as a result of deep consideration, when they believe in the importance of what they are doing, their work creates a stir in the world. ~ Robert Henri

Matter what your father plans, nor what his motives might be. God will prevail. God will use everything to His good purpose if you love and trust Him. ~ Francine Rivers

Who would be so base as to pick on a wizened, shriveled old lady, well stricken in years, who has consecrated her entire life to the needy and the destitute? On the other hand, who would be so incurious as to leave unexamined the influence and motives of a woman who once boasted of operating more than five hundred convents in upward of 105 countries - "without counting India"? Lone self-sacrificing zealot, or chair of a missionary multinational? The scale alters with the perspective, and the perspective alters with the scale. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The Professor shook his head. 'On the contrary, my motives are most simple, to advance science and to combat evil. ~ Robert Rankin

Even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are 2 motives for reading a book; 1. That you enjoy it, 2. that can boast about it on goodreads. ~ Bertrand Russell

Our enemy is [. . .] and all people like him, who never question their motives or doubt their desires. They are put on this earth to cause misery, because what they take so freely for themselves comes always at great cost to others. ~ Susan Rivers

Ida was clearly exasperated by the fact that despite the motives that accompanied the lynching statistics published year after year - which Ida included in nearly every article - "law-abiding and fair-minded people should so persistently shut their eyes to the facts." Ida continued, "This record, easily within the reach of every one who wants it," made it "inexcusable" for anyone not to debunk the presumption from the beginning. ~ Paula J. Giddings

I maintain, then, that scientific psychology (and, it may be added, the psychology of the same kind that we all unconsciously practise when we try to "figure to ourselves" the stirrings of our own or others' souls) has, in its inability to discover or even to approach the essence of the soul, simply added one more to the symbols that collectively make up the Macrocosm of the culture-man. Like everything else that is no longer becoming but become, it has put a mechanism in place of an organism. We miss in its picture that which fills our feeling of life (and should surely be " soul " if anything is) the Destiny-quality, the necessary directedness of existence, the possibility that life in its course actualizes. I do not believe that the word "Destiny" figures in any psychological system whatsoever - and we know that nothing in the world could be more remote from actual life-experience and knowledge of men than a system without such elements. Associations, apperceptions, affections, motives, thought, feeling, will - all are dead mechanisms, the mere topography
of which constitutes the insignificant total of our "soul-science." One looked for Life and one found an ornamental pattern of notions. And the soul remained what it was, something that could neither be thought nor represented, the secret, the ever-becoming, the pure experience. ~ Oswald Spengler

Frightened people try to defend themselves by accusing others of their own motives. ~ Vera Caspary

I'm only trying to make you see beyond men's acts to their motives. A man can appear to be a part of something not-so-good on its face, but don't take it upon yourself to judge him unless you know his motives as well. A man can be boiling inside, but he knows a mild answer works better than showing his rage. A man can condemn his enemies, but it's wiser to know them ... Have you ever considered that men, especially men, must conform to the demands of the community they live in simply so they can be of service to it? ~ Harper Lee

I wonder, with all the flowers in the garden, how many of them ever think of hanging themselves with the garden hose, if ever they can. ~ Anthony Liccione

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. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

I must not reflect on what I'm doing. Rather, I must do one of the most difficult things imaginable and reflect on 'why' I'm doing it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Growl, you live in a slime lair and maintain an identity as the mysterious overlord of an undersea city, you command a fleet of meat dreadnaughts with crews of humanoid whale people, and you're currently reclining in a pulsating mass of gelatinous goo that looks like it escaped from hell's own Jell-O mold
so excuse the fuck out of me if I question your motives. ~ Christopher Moore

The pure in heart are slow to credit calumnies, because they hardly comprehend what motives can be inducements to the alleged crimes. ~ Jane Porter

On the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology. ~ Arthur Koestler

Do I get up every morning and ask: am I doing the things that I believe in and am I doing them for the best possible motives? Yes. Unambiguously yes. ~ Nick Clegg

There are so many different ways to lead. The most important thing is to be genuine. To have people around you trust you, trust in what you stand for and who you are. And I think that if people watch you day in and day out and believe in your motives and they believe that you set a high standard for yourself. ~ Steve Nash

asked me, "what were the usual causes or motives that made one country go to war with another?" I answered "they were innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the chief. Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration. ~ Jonathan Swift

Your task as a leader is to help others to succeed, not to strive only for your own success. If I don't trust your motives, nothing else will matter -because my primary concern is your integrity. ~ David Maister

God knows the motives of every man. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Once you start rummaging around in the realm of the unverifiable there is considerable room for creativity, and accusations of sorcery are often blended with self-serving motives. Tribal people, anthropologists have shown, often single out despised in-laws for allegations of witchcraft, a convenient ~ Steven Pinker

...but who are we to question the motives of these giants of commerce whose whims rule the course of our nation. ~ John Kennedy Toole

The motives of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis or his history, as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and troublesome test; and it is by this troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is sifted. ~ Homer