Motive Quotes - Page 19

• Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives.

  Criss Jami

  Fighting, Understanding, Enemy

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.79, Criss Jami

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• The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.

  Criss Jami

  Thinking, Envy, Criticism

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.89, Criss Jami

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• Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally distort the motives of a pure-intentioned individual, then, no longer have the opportunity to block his path; instead, they are the ones left to stand on the sidelines shouting frustratedly in the wind of his trail.

  Criss Jami

  Running, Block, Opportunity

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• Humanity is made up of an infinity of different individuals. Each of us travels for motives exclusively his own.

  Ella Maillart

  Humanity, Different, Literature

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• It is a good motive, fame and money, as it is tangible and measurable. Being an artist is neither measurable nor tangible and certainly not a way to become rich.

  Dirk Benedict

  Artist, Tangible, Way

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• The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

  Franz Kafka

  Evil, Whiplash, Ulterior Motive

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• It is when we act freely, for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives, that we learn to become more than what we were.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Sake, Action, Ulterior Motive

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• There is plenty of room to make a profit in a zero-carbon economy; but the profit motive is not going to be the midwife for that great transformation.

  Naomi Klein

  Zero, Rooms, Transformation

  Naomi Klein (2014). “This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate”, p.252, Simon and Schuster

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• Maybe, generations ago, young people rebelled out of some clear motive, but now, we know we're rebelling. Between teen movies and sex-ed textbooks we're so ready for our rebellious phase we can't help but feel it's safe, contained. It will turn out all right, despite the risk, snug in the shell of rebellion narrative. Rebellion narrative, does that make sense? It was appropriate to do, so we did it.

  Daniel Handler

  Sex, People, Risk

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• One must know ones enemy as he is, not as one, for whatever motives, wishes him to be.

  Eugen Kogon

  Enemy, Wish, Knows

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• The automobile is technologically more sophisticated than the bundling board, but the human motives in their uses are sometimes the same.

  Charles Mengel Allen

  Boards, Use, Driving

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• Are you an artist? Look about you. Is there a physical tool whose use you have mastered, a part of your body that responds utterly to your control? Is your motive esthetic? If so, you are an artist. If not, you are probably a writer.

  Robert Breault

  Artist, Tools, Looks

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• Capitalism justified itself and was adopted as an economic principle on the express ground that it provides selfish motives for doing good, and that human beings will do nothing except for selfish motives

  George Bernard Shaw

  Selfish, Principles, Justified

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• The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Real, Deceit, Our Actions

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.62

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• 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

  Justice, Feelings, Humanity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.128

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• He who has no passion has no principal or motive to act.

  Claude Adrien Helvetius

  Passion, Principal

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• People begin running for any number of motives, but we stick to it for one basic reason-to find out who we really are.

  George A. Sheehan

  Running, Numbers, People

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• But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then.

  William Ralph Inge

  Powerful, Men, Average

  William Ralph Inge (1920). “Outspoken Essays”

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• Marxism: The theory that all the important things in history are rooted in an economic motive, that history is a science, a science of the search for food.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Food, Science, Important

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• 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.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Self, Speech, Flawless

  Sri Aurobindo, Aurobindo Ghose (1993). “The Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo's Teaching and Method of Practice”, p.143, Lotus Press

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• Watchfulness is the only guard against cunning. Be intent on his intentions. Many succeed in making others do their own affairs, and unless you possess the key to their motives you may at any moment be forced to take their chestnuts out of the fire to the damage of your own fingers.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Fire, Keys, May

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• Feast of Clare of Assisi, Founder of the Order of Minoresses (Poor Clares), 1253 Commemoration of John Henry Newman, Priest, Teacher, Tractarian, 1890 It is our great relief that God is not extreme to mark what is done amiss, that he looks at the motives, and accepts and blesses in spite of incidental errors.

  John Henry Newman

  Teacher, Order, Errors

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• One of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Motivation, Feelings, Essentials

  Jean-Paul Sartre (2012). “Literature & Existentialism”, p.21, Open Road Media

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• We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.

  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

  People, Abuse, Charmed

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• One must be truthful with oneself about one's own motives, especially if one is to survive in the world. It takes rigor, and it takes courage.

  Emile Chartier

  Inspirational, Self Respect, World

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