Motive Quotes

Altruism is a fine motive, but if you want results, greed works much better.

Society is the offspring of leisure; and to acquire this forms the only rational motive for accumulating wealth, notwithstanding the cant that prevails on the subject of labor.

Sometimes fear is wholesome and rational; it is well to swing fear as a mighty battle-axe over men's heads when no other motive will move them.

No woman dares to refuse love without a motive, for nothing is more natural than to yield to love.

Life always take on the character of its motive.

I rarely find motive in bird vomit.

The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits.

The true worth of a soul is revealed as much by the motive it attributes to the actions of others as by its own deeds.

What's stronger-the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

Resist the temptation to ascribe motive, because you really don't know - and it gets in the way of being able to reach a consensus on things that matter to you and to many other people.

The sun alone appears, by virtue of his dignity and power, suited for this motive duty (of moving the planets) and worthy to become the home of God himself.

Tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer.

Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later.

The satisfaction that accompanies good acts is itself not the motivation of the act; satisfaction is not the motive, but only the consequence.

I have always examined closely the motives of any group for which I am asked to raise money.

There is no such thing as an exact synonym and no such thing as an unmixed motive.

Love is a far more dangerous motive than dislike.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive. To know and to will are two operations of the human mind. Discerning, judging, deliberating are acts of the human mind.

Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.

And I envy the intransigence of my own Countrymen who shoot to kill and never See the victim's face become their own Or find his motive sabotage their motives.

Magnanimity will not consider the prudence of its motives.

Ah, what a sweetner of toil is love—love to a dear earthly parent, and still more love to Christ. There is no drudgery in the most menial employment where that is the motive power.

Capitalism started out with a noble and high motive, but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

Take away the motive, and you take away the sin.

No one can expect a majority to be stirred by motives other than ignoble.

When you're a woman with a certain amount of fame and money, you are never certain what someone's motives are.

We rarely do anything with on single motive.

I've met a few people who had to change their jobs in order to change their lives, but I've met many more people who merely had to change their motive to service in order to change their lives.

In proportion as a man is selfish, so far has he receded from the motive which constitutes virtue.

Economists talk about profit motive, but nothing motivates modern man more than a chance to avoid taxes!

Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret.

Watch your motive before God; have no other motive in prayer than to know Him.

Our Lord did not say it was wrong to pray in the corners of the street, but He did say it was wrong to have the motive to "be seen of men".

This insistence on "having his say upon the universe" is the profoundest motive of William James thinking as well as of his filial gratitude.

I'm not going to stop talking to people who come up to me in an airport. I'm not going to worry about what may be their ulterior motive.

In the motive lies the good or ill.

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.

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

To be free from all egoistic motive, careful of truth in speech and action, void of self-will and self-assertion, watchful in all things, is the condition for being a flawless servant.

The key to motivation is motive.

Beautiful words are ugly motives best friends.

It's a world in which people's motives are questionable and shadowy.

Sincerity of conviction and purity of motive will surely gain the day; and even a small minority, armed with these, is surely destined to prevail against all odds.

What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.

We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money.

Malice will always find bad motives for good actions. - Shall we therefore never do good?

Every line, everything you do in life, should have a motive and a reason. Every one of us should have a motive and a reason, most of the time, to accomplish all the things that we want in life.

The most terrible of motives and the most unanswerable of responses: Because.

In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.