Motive Quotes - Page 40

• Showing kindness causes oxytocin release in the recipient that motives him or her to be kind to others. You can start this virtuous cycle in the simplest ways, for example, by giving someone a hug. I send you a hug!

  Paul J. Zak

  Kindness, Oxytocin, Giving

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• If there was no other motive in view [except] to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it.

  Wilford Woodruff

  Children, Reading, Writing

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• The more we realize we are loved, the more ashamed we are not to love back. The more we sin as a violation of love, not just of law, the more powerful a motive we will have to overcome it. For sin is attractive to us (otherwise we would never be attracted to it) and can be cast out only by something more attractive.

  Peter Kreeft

  Love, Powerful, Law

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.137, Ignatius Press

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• ...we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.

  Maria Montessori

  Teacher, Children, Listening

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• Sometimes fear is wholesome and rational; it is well to swing fear as a mighty battle-axe over men's heads when no other motive will move them.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Fear, Moving, Men

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

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• There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

  Earle Brown

  Political, Creation, Used

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• If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Fashion, Men, Temptation

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “Miscellanies: The four Georges. The English humorists. Roundabout papers”, p.38

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• If you are thinking of nything with dependence upon it, there is a motive of curiosity, or pleasure, or success, and though the thinking will help towards satisfaction you will still be in bondage. There is no harm in this, but the higher samadhi, without such motives, is best.

  Ernest Wood

  Thinking, Curiosity, Satisfaction

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• The overcoming of adversity and, ultimately, denying it the rite of passage, has been a constant and perpetual motive throughout my life.

  Heather Mills

  Adversity, Overcoming, Passages

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• A wicked person, swayed by evil motives and evil actions, is described as a demon.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Wicked Person, Evil, Action

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• A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger... The original motive is not pleasure in destruction... I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live.

  Wilhelm Reich

  Dangerous Situations, Anxiety, Want

  "The Function of the Orgasm". Book by Wilhelm Reich, 1927.

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• People do not always understand the motives of sublime conduct, and when they are astonished they are very apt to think they ought to be alarmed The truth is none are fit judges of greatness but those who are capable of it.

  Jane Porter

  Greatness, Thinking, People

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.26

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• This is the constitutional limitation of man's knowledge and interests, the fact that he cannot know more than a tiny part of the whole of society and that therefore all that can enter into his motives are the immediate effects which his actions will have in the sphere he knows.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Men, Tiny, Facts

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• The greater part of our daily actions are the result of hidden motives which escape our observation.

  Gustave Le Bon

  Motivation, Action, Results

  Gustave Le Bon (2013). “The Crowd”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

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• When Christianity is received, it stimulates the faculties, and calls forth new ideas, new motives and new sentiments. It has been the mother of all modern education

  James McCosh

  Mother, Ideas, Christianity

  James McCosh (1875). “Christianity and Positivism: A Series of Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics”, p.340

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• Even if people are suspicious of the motives I think that learning and speaking two languages can only be a good thing for people.

  Stephen Harper

  Thinking, Two, People

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• One way of getting along with people is the ability to give in. Strength of character means the ability to give in to others from motives of love, kindness, and humility, and to do so gracefully, when no sin is involved. It also means the ability to stand on principle, and not to give in, when sin is involved.

  Lawrence G. Lovasik

  Kindness, Mean, Humility

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• Everyone who comes within the reach of your knowledge is, as it were, on trial in your mind. It is easy to be an unjust, ignorant, and even a merciless judge. The real character of the actions of others depends in great measure on the motives that prompt them, and these motives are unknown to you.

  Lawrence G. Lovasik

  Motivation, Real, Character

  Lawrence G. Lovasik (1999). “The Hidden Power of Kindness: A Practical Handbook for Souls who Dare to Transform the World, One Deed at a Time”, p.52, Sophia Institute Press

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• Hunger, love, vanity, and fear. There are four great motives of human action.

  William Graham Sumner

  Motivation, Vanity, Four

  William Graham Sumner (2007). “Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals”, p.18, Cosimo, Inc.

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• When a man resists sin on human motive only, he will not hold out long.

  Daniel H. Wilson

  Men, Long, Temptation

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• Society is the offspring of leisure; and to acquire this forms the only rational motive for accumulating wealth, notwithstanding the cant that prevails on the subject of labor.

  Henry Theodore Tuckerman

  Society, Leisure, Wealth

  Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1850). “The optimist”, p.115

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• Ambition is vital, but dangerous: it is a keen motive and a driving force, but over what edge can it drive the artist?

  Eric Maisel

  Ambition, Artist, Driving

  Eric Maisel (1996). “Affirmations for Artists”, Tarcher

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• It is beyond doubt that the chief motive of Vegetarianism is the humane one. Questions of hygiene and of economy both play their part, and an important part, in a full discussion of food reform; but the feeling which underlies and animates the whole movement is the instinctive horror of butchery, especially the butchery of the more highly organized animals, so human, so near akin to man.

  Henry Stephens Salt

  Men, Animal, Vegetarianism

  "The Humanities of Diet". Book by Henry Stephens Salt, 1897.

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• In all our actions, God considers the intention: whether we act for Him or for some other motive.

  Maximus the Confessor

  Motivation, Our Actions, Intention

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• The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course-service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Peace, Helping Others, Giving

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.17, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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