Motive Quotes - Page 8

• The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results.

  Walter E. Williams

  People, Results, Interest

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• But weightier still are the contentment which comes from work well done, the sense of the value of science for its own sake, insatiable curiosity, and, above all, the pleasure of masterly performance and of the chase. These are the effective forces which move the scientist. The first condition for the progress of science is to bring them into play.

  Lawrence Joseph Henderson

  Moving, Science, Play

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• Like all passions, anger has degrees, ascending from slight vexation through deepening clouds to rage, and finally to fury, which is a black and horrible tempest. In its mid-region, where it is neither too little to be motive nor too furious to be ungovernable, it has usefulness. For all feeling is as fuel, and where there is none life has no fire, and then no flame of ascent.

  James Vila Blake

  Anger, Passion, Fire

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• Humanism inspires a lot of enthusiasm for everyday life and urges people to be better to one another, to work towards a better future and a common good. If I believed there was an afterlife I would have so much less motive for filling this life with every experience that is offered up to me.

  Stephen Fry

  Afterlife, People, Inspire

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• We're always projecting our moral categories on things. I think that's inevitable. But capitalism places no particular value on morality. Morality in the market is enforced by contract and regulation and law, because morality is understood to be in conflict with the motive force of greed and accumulation.

  Michael Pollan

  Thinking, Law, Greed

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded: here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance his Father's house.

  Richard Mant

  Christian, Wise, Father

  Richard Mant (bp. of Down, Connor and Dromore.) (1838). “The Church and her ministrations: discourses”, p.286

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• Profit per se is not my motive.

  Chris Hughes

  Profit

  "I Think It Would Be Fun to Run the New Republic: Chris Hughes as Charles Foster" by Tim Carmody, www.wired.com. March 9, 2012.

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• That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion.

  Edward Gibbon

  Strong, Government, History

  Edward Gibbon (2009). “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition”, p.15, Modern Library

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• Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict which was not unworthy of a statesman or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.

  Edward Gibbon

  Christian, History, Titles

  Edward Gibbon (2016). “THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (All 6 Volumes): From the Height of the Roman Empire, the Age of Trajan and the Antonines - to the Fall of Byzantium; Including a Review of the Crusades, and the State of Rome during the Middle Ages”, p.1036, e-artnow

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• Our feelings of separation from God will diminish as we become more childlike before Him. That is not easy in a world where the opinions of other human beings can have such an effect on our motives. But it will help us recognize this truth: God is close to us and aware of us and never hides from His faithful children.

  Henry B. Eyring

  Children, Feelings, Faithful

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• There are three things that are the motives of choice and three that are the motives of avoidance; namely, the noble, the expedient, and the pleasant, and their opposites, the base, the harmful, and the painful. Now in respect of all these the good man is likely to go right and the bad to go wrong, but especially in respect of pleasure; for pleasure is common to man with the lower animals, and also it is a concomitant of all the objects of choice, since both the noble and the expedient appear to us pleasant.

  Aristotle

  Animal, Men, Opposites

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• You should be careful what you wish for, as the reasons for war get confused. One person can be very clear in their motives, but others can have different agendas.

  Dougray Scott

  Confused, War, Wish

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• I can write no other than this: unless we use the weapons of the spirit, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus, dying with Him and rising with Him, men will go on fighting, and often from the highest motives, believing that they are fighting defensive wars for justice and in self-defense against present or future aggression.

  Dorothy Day

  Jesus, War, Believe

  Dorothy Day, Peter Day (1999). “On Pilgrimage”, p.51, A&C Black

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• Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture? ... I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people tend to gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.

  Martin Buber

  Christian, Religious, Mean

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• Even if people end up doing awful things, you can empathize with their motives when you know them. When you get to know the person, you can understand why they make those choices, even if they're bad. And oftentimes people do have good drives that are sympathetic and can even be seen as selfless and good-hearted.

  Bob Odenkirk

  People, Choices, Selfless

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• The scientific process has two motives: one is to understand the natural world, the other is to control it.

  C.P. Snow

  Two, World, Natural

  C. P. Snow, Stefan Collini (2012). “The Two Cultures”, p.67, Cambridge University Press

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• Any attention to them (terrorists) on the part of the media, any double-standard interpretation of their motives and results of their activity means nothing but a political and administrative support of terrorist acts

  Vladimir Putin

  Mean, Media, Support

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• The least glimmering or shade of acting, in man or woman, is a sure motive of envy in the rest; and, if their malice can't persuade the town's-people into a dislike of their performance, they'll cruelly endeavor to taint their characters.

  Charlotte Charke

  Character, Men, Envy

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• The whole plan of extermination was nothing less than a cold blooded, calculated political measure, having for its object the annihilation of a superior element in the population, which might prove troublesome, and to this must be added the motive of greed.

  Fridtjof Nansen

  Greed, Political, Might

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• God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ's sake, and from no other motive.

  Oswald Chambers

  Jesus, Determination, Attitude

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.148, Discovery House

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• I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Bullying, Strong, War

  Theodore Roosevelt (1899). “The Rough Riders: An Autobiography”, p.461, Library of America

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• To most people in the UK, indeed throughout Western Europe, space exploration is primarily perceived as 'what NASA does'. This perception is - in many respects - a valid one. Superpower rivalry during the Cold War ramped up US and Soviet space efforts to a scale that Western Europe had no motive to match.

  Martin Rees

  War, Space, Europe

  "Small, cheap and a giant leap for Britain" by Martin Rees, www.theguardian.com. December 28, 2003.

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• The ability to discern the thoughts and motives of your heart (especially when experiencing intense emotion) is an essential skill for the believer. Recognizing thoughts and imaginations of the heart is a prerequisite of bringing them 'captive to the obedience of Christ'.

  Lou Priolo

  Heart, Skills, Imagination

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• The parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice is striking. The same underlying motives appear to be at work, namely fear, jealousy, feelings of insecurity, fear of economic competition, guilt feelings, and the like. Many of the leaders of the feminist movement in the nineteenth-century United States clearly understood the similarity of the motives at work in antifeminism and race discrimination and associated themselves with the anti slavery movement.

  Ashley Montagu

  Race, Racism, Feminist

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• Love is the spirit that motivates the artist's journey. The love may sublime, raw, obsessive, passionate, awful. or thrilling, but whatever its quality, it's a powerful motive in the artist's life.

  Eric Maisel

  Powerful, Artist, Journey

  Eric Maisel (2010). “Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist's Personality, and Career from America's Foremost Creativity Coach”, p.26, New World Library

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