Motive Quotes - Page 35

• We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received.

  William Hazlitt

  Inspirational, Favors, Quantum

  William Hazlitt (1870). “The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things”, p.110

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• The less men are fettered by tradition, the greater becomes the inward activity of their motives, and greater again in proportion to their outer restlessness.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Inward, Tradition

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• It is one of the primary motives of modern art that it wants to abolish the distance which the viewer, the consumer, the audience maintain vis-a-vis a work of art. There is no doubt that the leaders of the creative artists of the last 50 years concentrated their efforts mainly on eliminating that distance.

  Hans-Georg Gadamer

  Art, Fun, Distance

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• From the explanatory notes that Willson wrote to accompany his symphony, A Symphony of San Francisco,: "Generally speaking, the first movement is intended to convey pioneer courage, loyalty, strength of purpose and freedom." The trumpet motive in the closing Allegro "is a call of defiance to the very elements themselves that had the temerity to dispute the spiritual strength and courage of the golden city of the West."

  Meredith Willson

  Loyalty, Spiritual, Freedom

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• Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism.

  Ayn Rand

  Selfish, Names, History

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand”

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• How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

  Ray Bradbury

  Writing, Creativity, Ideas

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• The alternation of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

  Isaac Newton

  Lines, Made, Force

  Principia Mathematica "Laws of Motion" 2 (1687) (translation by Andrew Motte)

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• Curiosity is natural to the soul of man and interesting objects have a powerful influence on our affections. Let these influencing powers actuate, by the permission or disposal of Providence, from selfish or social views, yet in time the mysterious will of Heaven is unfolded, and we behold our conduct, from whatever motives excited, operating to answer the important designs of heaven.

  Daniel Boone

  Powerful, Selfish, Men

  "The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke". Book by John Filson, the opening lines of "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon; containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucke", 1784.

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• Every selfish motive therefore, every family attachment, ought to recommend such a system of policy as would provide no less carefully for the rights and happiness of the lowest than of the highest orders of Citizens.

  George Mason

  Selfish, Attachment, Order

  "The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September, 1787", Volume 2, as recorded by James Madison, 1908.

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

  Ralph Barton Perry

  Gratitude, Thinking, Filial

  "The Thought and Character of William James, Volume 1". Book by Ralph Barton Perry, 1935.

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• What I desire of a poem is a clear understanding of motive, and a just evaluation of feeling A poem in the first place should offer us a new perception..bringing into being a new experience Verse is more valuable than prose for its rhythms are faster and more highly organised and lead to greater compexity.

  Yvor Winters

  New Experiences, Feelings, Understanding

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• The purpose of formulating [a] conflict as a game is not that of resolving the conflict by 'solving the game.' It is that of displaying the structure of the conflict and thereby exposing features of it that may be concealed by rhetoric. In particular, appreciation of the peculiar structure of some of the so-called mixed - motive conflicts represented nonzero-sum games may change the conflicting parties' perception of their situation.

  Anatol Rapoport

  Appreciation, Party, Games

  "Advances in Reversal Theory" by M.J. Apter, ‎J.H. Kerr, ‎S. Murgatroyd, (p. 63-64), 1993.

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• When you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and reputation for ability and success.

  Edward Bellamy

  Luxury, Effort, Desire

  Edward Bellamy (2016). “Looking Backward, 2000 to 1887: American literature”, p.47, VM eBooks

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• Technic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance

  Jackson Pollock

  Memories, Acceptance, Order

  "Abstract Expressionism". Book by David Anfam, p. 121, 1990.

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• Naive' is not a word I associate with the Southern Rule. Superstitious, perhaps, traditional, yes, maddeningly set in their way, certainly but not naive." "I meant you are naive. They must have a hidden motive." "This is why I have no politics," said Darvin. "I can't think in those terms.

  Ken MacLeod

  Thinking, Southern, Way

  Ken MacLeod (2012). “Learning The World: A novel of first contact”, p.187, Hachette UK

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• These people also tended to pretend to care deeply about the blind and otherwise disabled. I am sympathetic to the needs of those users, but I can't help but think that those who claimed to speak for the blind were being more than a little disingenuous, just like those Hemp people who present their arguments in terms of their deep and abiding care for the textile industry, when their real motives are ... something else entirely.

  Jamie Zawinski

  Real, Thinking, People

  "The Markup Wars". www.jwz.org. 2003.

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• What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Men, Want, Appetite

  Jean Baptiste Say (1834). “A Treatise on Political Economy: Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth”, p.211

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• Jesus reminds us that prayer is a little like children coming to their parents. Our children come to us with the craziest requests at times! Often we are grieved by the meanness and selfishness in their requests, but we would be all the more grieved if they never came to us even with their meanness and selfishness. We are simply glad that they do come--mixed motives and all.

  Richard J. Foster

  Jesus, Prayer, Children

  Richard J. Foster (2009). “Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Heart's True Home”, p.8, Harper Collins

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• Tis the motive exalts the action; 'Tis the doing, and not the deed.

  Margaret Preston

  Motivation, Deeds, Action

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• To be the authentic is to be detached and stand aside from oneself and the work so that the working process can take on an untrammeled life of its own. Labored self-involvement, contrivance, ulterior motives, even the extraordinary facility that one may have, must be let go.

  Joshua L. Goldberg

  Letting Go, Self, May

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• I would sooner look for figs on thistles than for the higher attributes of art from one whose ruling motive... is money.

  Asher Brown Durand

  Art, Money, Looks

  Linda S. Ferber, Asher Brown Durand (2007). “Kindred spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American landscape”, D Giles Ltd

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• The creative instinct has always been a stronger motive than mere profit to do truly new and revolutionary things.

  Phil Karn

  Creative, Stronger, Revolutionary

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• I would like to write a novel, or at least try to write one, although my motives are not entirely pure. For one thing, I get asked about writing novels so much that I feel guilty about never having written one. And although I have no strong desire to write a novel, I would hate not to try. That would just be silly. On the other hand, I hate the idea of slogging through something that turns out to be not good.

  Kelly Link

  Strong, Hate, Silly

  "Kelly Link, Words by Flashlight". Interview with Lauren McLaughlin, www.sensesfive.com. June 7, 2006.

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• In the 'in-itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections', of 'necessity', or of 'psychological non-freedom'; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or 'law'. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed 'in itself', we act once more as we have always acted- mythologically.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Law, Numbers, Connections

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• When you demand the nature of my motives, you reveal the style of your thinking to be callow, captious, superficial, craven, uncertain and impudent.

  Jack Vance

  Thinking, Style, Demand

  Jack Vance (2011). “The Languages of Pao”, p.61, Hachette UK

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