Motive Quotes - Page 37

• Conviction is a good motive, but a bad judge.

  Albert Einstein

  Judging, Conviction

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• One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

  Walter Isaacson

  Art, Memorable, Men

  "Einstein: His Life and Universe". Book by Walter Isaacson, 2007.

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• Men who just call to say hello generally have ulterior motives.

  Steig Larsson

  Men, Hello, Ulterior Motive

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• You must lay aside your greed; have no unworthy motive in your desire to become rich and powerful. It is legitimate and right to desire riches, if you want them for the sake of your soul, but not if you desire them for the lists of the flesh.

  Wallace D. Wattles

  Powerful, Greed, Soul

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• You are honest enough by nature to be able to see and judge your own self clearly - and that is a great thing. Never lose that honesty, Bobby - always be honest with yourself, know your own motives for what they are, good or bad, make your own decisions firmly and justly - and you will be a fine, strong character, of some real use in this muddled world of ours!

  Enid Blyton

  Strong, Honesty, Real

  Enid Blyton (2013). “Summer Term at St Clare's”, p.84, Egmont UK

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• For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency. If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic. People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware. Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world. Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional. The art of love is largely the art of persistence.

  Albert Ellis

  Art, Real, Self Esteem

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• There are three motives for which we live; we live for the body, we live for the mind, we live for the soul. No one of these is better or holier than the other; all are alike desirable, and no one of the three—body, mind, or soul—can live fully if either of the others is cut short of full life and expression.

  Wallace D. Wattles

  Cutting, Expression, Soul

  Napoleon Hill, Wallace D. Wattles (2012). “Get Rich Collection”, p.209, Penguin

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• They're called 'facts', and my role is to amplify those, not cheerlead. And I don't care at all what you think of my motives.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Thinking, Roles, Care

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• One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.

  Hannah Arendt

  Twenties, Facts, Advantage

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• By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

  Albert Camus

  Powerful, Men, Evil

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• The rich world likes and wishes to believe that someone, somewhere, is doing something for the Third World. For this reason, it does not inquire too closely into the motives or practices of anyone who fulfills, however vicariously, this mandate.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Believe, Practice, Wish

  Christopher Hitchens (1995). “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice”, p.49, Verso

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• We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us--who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed.

  Margaret Atwood

  Grief, Flames, Hands

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• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

  Mother Teresa

  Selfish, People, Self Centered

  Mother Teresa (1995). “A Simple Path-Open Market”

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• Who can add to Christmas? The perfect motive is that God so loved the world.
  The perfect gift is that He gave His only Son.
  The only requirement is to believe in Him.
  The reward of faith is that you shall have everlasting life.

  Corrie Ten Boom

  Christmas, Believe, Son

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• Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far.

  Henry Ford

  Business, Competition, Fellows

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• History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten. ...What is interesting is brought forward as if it had been central and efficacious in the march of events, and harmonies are turned into causes. Kings and generals are endowed with motives appropriate to what the historian values in their actions; plans are imputed to them prophetic of their actual achievements, while the thoughts that really preoccupied them remain buried in absolute oblivion.

  George Santayana

  Kings, History, Interesting

  George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.378, 谷月社

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• He who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or honor will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is received without gratitude.

  Aristotle

  Gratitude, Pain, Honor

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• No particular motive for living, except the custom and habit of it.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Life, Habit, Particular

  "Thackeray and his Novels" by William Makepeace Thackeray, Blackwood's Mag, January 1854.

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• It is difficult to find a reputable American historian who will acknowledge the crude fact that a Franklin Roosevelt, say, wanted to be President merely to wield power, to be famed and to be feared. To learn this simple fact one must wade through a sea of evasions: history as sociology, leaders as teachers, bland benevolence as a motive force, when, finally, power is an end to itself, and the instinctive urge to prevail the most important single human trait, the necessary force without which no city was built, no city destroyed.

  Gore Vidal

  Teacher, Simple, Sea

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• The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives for acts of violence that bring them no tangible benefit.

  Steven Pinker

  Mind, Religion, Atrocities

  Alan Page Fiske, Tage Shakti Rai, Steven Pinker (2014). “Virtuous Violence”, p.16, Cambridge University Press

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• Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better, stronger, or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may become injurious for the individual and for the community.

  Albert Einstein

  Science, Intelligent, Interesting

  Albert Einstein (2011). “Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words”, p.28, Open Road Media

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• Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspiration, Being Alone, Creativity

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.329, Princeton University Press

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• A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country.

  Frederick Douglass

  Country, Strong, 4th Of July

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• It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous members are ever mixed the most sordid interests and the fiercest passions of mean confedes.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Passion, Mean, Political

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• So our building of the visible Church becomes much like any natural business function, using natural means and natural motives.

  Francis Schaeffer

  God, Mean, Church

  Francis August Schaeffer (1971). “True Spirituality”, p.152, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

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