Motive Quotes

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.

Everyone has motives. Let's acknowledge that and get on with the interesting part.

The key to motivation is motive. It's the why. It's the deeper yes! burning inside that makes it easier to say no to the less important.

Our motive is not to prove our self-worth, but to live up to our possibilities.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

A wrong motive involves defeat.

The only motive that can keep politics pure is the motive of doing good for one's country and its people.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

All human desire is poised on an axis of paradox, absence and presence its poles, love and hate its motive energies.

Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.

Talent works for money and fame; the motive which moves genius to productivity is, on the other hand, less easy to determine.

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

The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them.

My motive, and I will make it clear and look you in the eyes, is to attack major league baseball. That's my motive.

God alone is perfectly and consistently just. We forget; God remembers. We see an action; God sees a motive. This qualifies Him as the best recordkeeper and judge.

In the fulfillment of your duties, let your intentions be so pure that you reject from your actions any other motive than the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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

I don't consider [my] photographs fashion photographs. The photographs were for fashion, but at the same time they had an ulterior motive, something more to do with the world in general.

Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.

The first expression of religion was the dance, and the first motive of the dance was religion.

What we believe to be the motives of our conduct are usually but the pretexts for it.

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.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

In a promise, what you thought, and not what you said, is always to be considered.

Never question another man's motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.

Cruel and cold is the judgment of man, Cruel as winter, and cold as the snow; But by-and-by will the deed and the plan Be judged by the motive that lieth below.

We act unbelievingly and disobediently when, for whatever motive, we distort, falsify, or suppress the facts about our life in nature and history.

Ultimately we must concern ourselves with pulling out by its roots the decadence that controls our culture, the profit motive that controls our culture.

Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man's life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?

Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.

Just because scientists have the knowledge to do it, the technology to do it, and some may even have a financial motive or other incentive to do it, does not make it right.

One who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at the right time, posseses character worthy of our trust and admiration.

Iago's soliloquy - the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity - how awful it is!

We've gotten lost in our Ego and have forgotten that our Soul's only motive is to merge with the Beloved.

Pure motives do not insure perfect results.

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

And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching

To claim "humanitarian motives" when the motive is envy and its supposed appeasement, is a favorite rhetorical device of politicians today, and has been for at least a hundred and fifty years.

Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.

The saving of labour of the individual should be the object and honest humanitarian considerations, and not greed, the motive.

We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.

The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God.

We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

The only treaties that ought to count are those which would effect a settlement between ulterior motives.

Effort plus motive equals result.

Motives reveal why we do what we do, which is actually more important to God than what we're doing.

Never fear to bring the sublimest motive to the smallest duty, and the most infinite comfort to the smallest trouble.