Motive Quotes - Page 5

• Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

  Samuel Johnson

  Secret, Action, Visible

  Samuel Johnson, Roger H. Lonsdale (2006). “Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets”, p.330, Oxford University Press

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• The distance is nothing when one has a motive.

  Jane Austen

  Distance, Pride And Prejudice Pride

  Jane Austen (2016). “Pride and Prejudice (Fourth Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Every relationship has one or the other motive behind it. Friendship or enemity are not purposeless.Oneness of motive is turned into friendship. While diversity of motive cause enemity. Royal relationships also depend uypon one or theother purpose. But such relatins ar mainly for the welfare of the state.

  Chanakya

  Oneness, Diversity, Political

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• Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination, with the right motive, are the levers that move the world.

  Noah Porter

  Leadership, Determination, Moving

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• Four things to learn in life: To think clearly without hurry or confusion; To love everybody sincerely; To act in everything with the highest motives; To trust God unhesitatingly.

  Helen Keller

  Life, Learning, Thinking

  Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan (1921). “The Story of My Life: with her letters (1887--1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan”, Doubleday, Page & Company

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• What's stronger-the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

  Jodi Picoult

  Law, Stronger, Needs

  Jodi Picoult (2007). “Perfect Match”, p.339, Simon and Schuster

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• No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.

  Carrie Fisher

  Giving, Sometimes, Hearty

  Carrie Fisher (2012). “Wishful Drinking”, p.139, Simon and Schuster

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• When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.

  Robin Hobb

  Men, Remember You, Remembers You

  "Assasin's Apprentice". Book by Robin Hobb, 1995.

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• These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.

  Bertrand Russell

  Illustration, People, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.68, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.

  Charles R. Swindoll

  Beautiful, Truth, Honesty

  Charles R. Swindoll (2004). “Improving Your Serve”, p.23, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Behind many acts that are thought ridiculous there lie wise and weighty motives.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Wise, Lying, Ridiculous

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• If the only motive was to help people who could not afford education, advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed tuition subsidies.

  Milton Friedman

  Government, People, Liberty

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• He is courageous who endures and fears the right thing, for the right motive, in the right way and at the right times.

  Aristotle

  Courage, Way, Endure

  Aristotle (1962). “Nicomachean Ethics”

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• One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Left

  Emile M. Cioran (1976). “The Trouble with Being Born”, Viking Books

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• Get to know two things about a man. How he earns his money and how he spends it. You will then have the clue to his character. You know all you need to know about his standards, his motives, his driving desires, his real religion.

  Robert McCracken

  Real, Character, Men

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• Many of us knock on the door but remain outside, because knocking and entering are entirely different actions. Knocking is necessary, consisting of reading books, attending meetings, asking questions. But entrance requires much bolder action. It requires one to enter into himself, to uncover hidden motives, to see contradictions, and to realize his actual power for self-change.

  Vernon Howard

  Motivational, Book, Reading

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• It is impossible to live pure lives until we have pure hearts. Many people today are trying to put the cart before the horse. They are teaching purity of motives, desires, and actions to old, deceitful hearts! No wonder we have ended up such moral failures, in spite of our vaunted knowledge and psychological approaches.

  Billy Graham

  Horse, Teaching, Heart

  Billy Graham (2011). “The Secret of Happiness”, p.103, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• To accept struggle as part of life, to accept all of it, even the darkest moments of anguish; to be motivated by love rather than fear, by confidence rather than insecurity: these are the benchmarks of high self-esteem. The wish to avoid fear and pain is not the motive that drives the lives of highly evolved men and women; rather, it is the life force within them, thrusting toward its unique form of expression-the actualization of personal values.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Pain, Self Esteem, Struggle

  Nathaniel Branden (1998). “Nathaniel Brandens Self-Esteem Every Day: Reflections on Self-Esteem and Spirituality”, p.62, Simon and Schuster

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• This going on and on about how terrible a carbon-based economy is, these people are full of crap. They don't know what they're talking about. Their motives are not necessarily good just because they say they are being good. It's peace, love, and understanding. To which I can just say, "Shut up." Human liberty, rule of law, and free markets fix this stuff. It isn't necessary to go around being the Mia Farrow of the ecosphere.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Talking, Law, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Capitalism is not about the profit motive. Capitalism is about free markets. What you do in the market, in your free will, is the essence of capitalism.

  Muhammad Yunus

  Essence, Free Will, Profit

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Words can be worrisome, poeple complex, motives and manners unclear, grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.

  Neil Gaiman

  Path, Manners, Grants

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• I learned then that practically no one in the world is entirely bad or entirely good, and that motives are often more important than actions.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Important, World, Action

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• Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Adequate, Metaphysical

  Edmund Burke, James BURKE (Barrister-at-Law.) (1854). “The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke”, p.115

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• One interesting feature of criticism is seen in the ease with which it discovers what Addison called the specific quality of an author. In Livy, it will be the manner of telling the story; in Sallust, personal identification with the character; in Tacitus, the analysis of the deed into its motive. If the same test be applied to painters, it will find the prominent faculty of Correggio to be manifested in harmony of effect; of Poussin, in the sentiment of his landscapes; and of Raffaelle, in the general comprehension of his subject.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Character, Interesting, Quality

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• I value science--none can prize it more,
  It gives ten thousand motives to adore:
  Be it religious, as it ought to be,
  The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee.

  Abraham Coles

  Religious, Heart, Science

  Abraham Coles (1866). “The Microcosm: A Poem, Read Before the Medical Society of New Jersey at Its Centenary Anniversary: with the Address Delivered as President, Jan. 24, 1866”, p.22

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