Motive Quotes - Page 27

• Rationalization is a cover-up, a process of providing one's emotions with a false identity, of giving them spurious explanations and justifications - in order to hide one's motives, not just from others, but primarily from oneself. The price of rationalizing is the hampering, the distortion, and, ultimately, the destruction of one's cognitive faculty. Rationalization is a process not of perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one's emotions.

  Ayn Rand

  Reality, Order, Giving

  Ayn Rand (1984). “Philosophy: Who Needs It”, p.25, Penguin

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• The goal of liberalism is the peaceful cooperation of all men. It aims at peace among nations too. When there is private ownership of the means of production everywhere and when laws, the tribunals and the administration treat foreigners and citizens on equal terms, it is of little importance where a country's frontiers are drawn... War no longer pays; there is no motive for aggression... All nations can coexist peacefully.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Country, War, Mean

  "Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War". Book by Ludwig von Mises, July 23, 1944.

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• I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born

  George Mason

  Country, Ambition, Son

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• Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That's just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.

  Ben Bradlee

  Newspapers, Given, Repeats

  "Deep Throat Revealed: Ben Bradlee". Live Q&A, www.washingtonpost.com. June 2, 2005.

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• One of the strongest motives for wishing to work on yourself is the realization that you may die at any moment - only you must first realize this.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Wish, Realization, May

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

  Norman Douglas

  Majority, Ignoble

  Norman Douglas (1982). “South Wind”, p.83, Courier Corporation

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• 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

  Strong, Communication, Animal

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• The only work that spiritually purifies us is that which is done without personal motives.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Done

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• If any one of us has had an ambition higher than that of making money; a motive better than that of expediency; a faith warmer than that of reasoning; a love purer than that of the self; he has been slow to express it; still slower to urge it.

  Henry Adams

  Ambition, Self, Making Money

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• The underlying issues, the psychological motives, in all my movies have been the same, he said. Personal responsibility and friendship, the importance of a compassionate life as opposed to a passionate life.

  George Lucas

  Responsibility, Issues, Passionate

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• In work we act under the predominant motive of external, rational necessities; in pleasure, under the predominant motive of other, equally general necessities of human nature. Rest or recreation is the element in which the personality seeks to renew its strength from these stimuli that exhaust the reserve of human resources. It's an element introduced into life by the person himself.

  Nikolay Chernyshevsky

  Personality, Elements, Human Nature

  Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, Michael R. Katz (1989). “What Is to Be Done?”, p.315, Cornell University Press

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• Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. Even with no motive to be false, it is very hard to say the exact truth.

  George Eliot

  Easy, Difficult, Hard

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• The secret of every durable ... social system is the recasting of 'functional prerequisites' into behavioral motives for actors.

  Zygmunt Bauman

  Secret, Actors, Social

  Zygmunt Bauman (2008). “Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?”

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• The pleasant life is not produced by continual drinking and dancing, nor sexual intercourse, nor rare dishes of sea food and other delicacies of a luxurious table. On the contrary, it is produced by sober reasoning which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, driving away beliefs which are the source of mental disturbances.

  Epicurus

  Drinking, Sea, Dancing

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

  James Surowiecki

  Benefits, May, Chance

  "Penny-Wise" by James Surowiecki, www.newyorker.com. September 27, 2004.

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• The motive of grace is the infinite, compassionate love of a merciful God, but the work of grace was the death of Christ on the cross.

  Billy Graham

  Christ On The Cross, Grace, Compassionate Love

  Billy Graham (2010). “Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional”, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• 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".

  Oswald Chambers

  Men, Praying, Lord

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.254, Discovery House

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• We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.

  Victor Hugo

  People, Would Be, Behavior

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• 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.

  Joe Biden

  People, Temptation, Matter

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• People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.

  Eugene Ionesco

  People, Evil, Trying

  "Eugene Ionesco, The Art of Theater No. 6". Interview with Shusha Guppy, Paris Review, No. 93, www.theparisreview.org. Fall 1984.

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• All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions.... This is the motive of every act of every man, including those who go and hang themselves.

  Blaise Pascal

  Men, Exception, Including

  Blaise Pascal (2008). “Human Happiness”, Penguin Group USA

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• No one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances.

  Mark Twain

  Faults, Found, Acquaintance

  Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner (1915). “The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day”, p.143

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• A wrong motive involves defeat.

  Mary Baker Eddy

  Defeat

  Mary Baker Eddy (2014). “Science And Health”, p.533, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.

  Plutarch

  Children, Study, Whipping

  Plutarch (1871). “Plutarch's Morals”, p.20

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• It is only necessary to destroy in oneself the roots of those motives which determine a man's course, in order to enjoy the omnipotence and immunity of a god.

  Aleister Crowley

  Men, Order, Omnipotence

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