Motive Quotes - Page 6

• 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

  Motivation, United States, Moral

  Joan Robinson (1962). “Economic philosophy”, p.128, Transaction Publishers

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• But weightier still are the contentment which comes from work well done, the sense of the value of science for its own sake, insatiable curiosity, and, above all, the pleasure of masterly performance and of the chase. These are the effective forces which move the scientist. The first condition for the progress of science is to bring them into play.

  Lawrence Joseph Henderson

  Moving, Science, Play

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• For an act may be wrong judged purely by itself, but when the motive that prompted the act is understood, it is construed differently. I lay it down as an axiom, that only that is criminal in the sight of God where crime is meditated.

  Elizabeth Keckley

  Sight, Criminals, May

  Elizabeth Keckley (2016). “Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House”, p.11, Enhanced Media Publishing

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• Children are not created fully equipped with such values as courage, compassion, integrity, and insights into the motives and needs of themselves and of others.

  Irene Hunt

  Children, Integrity, Compassion

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• We in America count on the profit motive to get people to do the right thing. That's our basic American notion when it comes to business.

  Chris Matthews

  America, People, Profit

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

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• We're always projecting our moral categories on things. I think that's inevitable. But capitalism places no particular value on morality. Morality in the market is enforced by contract and regulation and law, because morality is understood to be in conflict with the motive force of greed and accumulation.

  Michael Pollan

  Thinking, Law, Greed

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Humanism inspires a lot of enthusiasm for everyday life and urges people to be better to one another, to work towards a better future and a common good. If I believed there was an afterlife I would have so much less motive for filling this life with every experience that is offered up to me.

  Stephen Fry

  Afterlife, People, Inspire

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• There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.

  Margaret Atwood

  Thinking, Mirrors, People

  "Margaret Atwood Interview". Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. December 2, 2010.

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• Like all passions, anger has degrees, ascending from slight vexation through deepening clouds to rage, and finally to fury, which is a black and horrible tempest. In its mid-region, where it is neither too little to be motive nor too furious to be ungovernable, it has usefulness. For all feeling is as fuel, and where there is none life has no fire, and then no flame of ascent.

  James Vila Blake

  Anger, Passion, Fire

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• Apart from selfish reasons, such as fear of punishments, fear of blame, of dishonour, etc, there remains only two motives that can stop (or prevent, "empâecher", Fr.) men from acting badly; the natural sense of commiseration (or "sympathy", - "commisération", Fr.) for one's fellow men - compassion, and the influence of education, by association of ideas ("par l'association d'idées", Fr.) - habit.

  African Spir

  Selfish, Compassion, Men

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 57), 1937.

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• Love turns all the wheels of human industry, is the motive power under the world's machinery, makes worthwhile every enterprise on the earth, is coequal with life, outlasts death, and reaches onward into heaven.

  Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

  Heaven, World, Earth

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• Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded: here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance his Father's house.

  Richard Mant

  Christian, Wise, Father

  Richard Mant (bp. of Down, Connor and Dromore.) (1838). “The Church and her ministrations: discourses”, p.286

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

  Patricia Richardson

  Fame, Certain, Amount

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Our impatience of miles, when we are in a hurry; but it is still best that a mile should have seventeen hundred and sixty yards.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Should Have, Yards, Impatience

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.235, Penguin

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• It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Class, Feelings

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• I will content myself, Mr. Speaker, with those principal motives to union; first, that we are in the rapids and must go on; next that our neighbours will not, on their side, let us rest supinely, even if we could do so from other causes; and thirdly, that by making the united colonies more valuable as an ally to Great Britain, we shall strengthen rather than weaken the imperial connection. (Cheers.

  Thomas D'Arcy McGee

  Cheer, Goes On, Unions

  Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1865). “Speeches and Addresses Chiefly on the Subject of British-American Union”, p.282, London : Chapman and Hall

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• It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.

  William Pfaff

  Government, People, Style

  "Barbarian Sentiments - How The American Century Ends". Book by William Pfaff, Chapter 5, Nationalism, p. 147, 1989.

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• The least glimmering or shade of acting, in man or woman, is a sure motive of envy in the rest; and, if their malice can't persuade the town's-people into a dislike of their performance, they'll cruelly endeavor to taint their characters.

  Charlotte Charke

  Character, Men, Envy

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• You should be careful what you wish for, as the reasons for war get confused. One person can be very clear in their motives, but others can have different agendas.

  Dougray Scott

  Confused, War, Wish

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• The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the
  selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the
  unselfish motives will follow as we wise up.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Wise, Appreciation, Selfish

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Small Wonder”, p.82, Faber & Faber

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• Profit per se is not my motive.

  Chris Hughes

  Profit

  "I Think It Would Be Fun to Run the New Republic: Chris Hughes as Charles Foster" by Tim Carmody, www.wired.com. March 9, 2012.

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• We're now interested in finding those who may attack America and arrest them before they do. We've had over nearly a thousand people have been detained in America and questioned about their motives and their intentions.

  George W. Bush

  Humor, America, People

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• That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion.

  Edward Gibbon

  Strong, Government, History

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.15, Modern Library

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• The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear, animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution.

  Edward Gibbon

  Distance, Views, Flames

  Edward Gibbon (1998). “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.307, Wordsworth Editions

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• Julian sincerely abhorred the system of oriental despotism which Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of four score years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition prevented the execution of the design which Julian had frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a costly diadem; but he absolutely refused the title of Dominus or Lord, a word which was grown so familiar to the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its servile and humiliating origin.

  Edward Gibbon

  Years, History, Design

  Edward Gibbon, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, Theodore Roosevelt (2012). “The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812”, p.648, Modern Library

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