Motives Quotes

“The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Would you like to know your future?

If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.

So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence -- a surprise.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Bitter people are not interested in what you say, but what you hide.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Men (people) are rarely aware of the real reasons which motivate their actions.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

“Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally distort the motives of a pure-intentioned individual, then, no longer have the opportunity to block his path; instead, they are the ones left to stand on the sidelines shouting frustratedly in the wind of his trail.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“I survive at the edge of friends circles.”
― Holly Black, Red Glove

“Whenever we want to combat our enemies, first and foremost we must start by understanding them rather than exaggerating their motives.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“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, Summer Term at St Clare's

“The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

“This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Many people in a rather reckless context claim to 'just tell it like it is'. In actuality, nobody really stresses what one says so much as the motive behind what one says; hence, he is merely blowing hot air and detracting from 'what is'.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“If you make a choice in this conference and you stick to it to be an excellent person in everything you do and you stick to it especially to be excellent when nobody is looking and do it not to get a result but to glorify God you’re going to have peace and joy and you’re going to have results. My concern is that if we just do something to get results then we’re not likely to follow things all the way through to the finish, because we get very discouraged, and I think that’s one of the reasons we have such discouragement among people. “Well, I’m doing this, and I expected to get a breakthrough before now.” ….. Well, I think God has to purify our hearts and get us to the point where we are not just doing something right just to get something!”
― Joyce Meyer

“The world is not full of betrayers, it is full of people with decent motives and a full desire to do right by those who know them and love them. This is a little-known truth, but I think it is a truth nonetheless. Empirically, from all the years of my work, I would attest to that. I know it is a miraculous conclusion, but there it is. We like to make strangers of everyone. We are not wolves, but lambs astonished in the margins of the fields by sunlight and summer.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

“Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self-control. When mixed with an already clear conscience, the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps one's conscience both clear and at ease.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquility was no more.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved.

It did not care, it could not care, what happened to her, not one bit.

She was a mote, a speck, a floating windborne fleck of dust.”
― Lauren Groff, The Vaster Wilds

“In the end, only God can see the heart of an individual and distinguish the difference between legalistic deadweight and the passion of holy solemnity.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because we feel powerless, invisible, unheard. We crave celebrity, but that’s not easy to come by, so we settle for notoriety. Envy and bitterness drive a new breed of lawbreakers, replacing the old motives of poverty and the need for escape. But how do you solve crimes which no longer have traditional motives?”
― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase

“And now, no matter what I thought I had done or why I did it, it has become completely untrue because of what I have done since.”
― Tony Burgess, People Live Still in Cashtown Corners

“Trust not in Sprites nor the motivations of a Gnome.”
― Jefferson Smith, Strange Places

“People will have their excitements, and a good rousing persecution used to stir things like the burning of Chicago or a Presidential election in our day.”
― Edward Payson Roe, Works of E. P. Roe, The: V4

“Resolutely ignoring Banu's dark mutterings, steeling herself against the barrage of harsh words that questioned her motives, her upbringing, and her morality”
― Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us

“Bethink thee then how love must be the seed
In you, not only of each virtuous action,
But also of each punishable deed.”
― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio, Vol. II. Part 2: Commentary

“Seducers, whose motives are mean, can never understand magnanimous minds.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Bette

“It does that to you, being a detective. You look at blank space and see gears turning, motives and cunning; nothing looks innocent any more. Most times when you prove away the gears, the blank space looks lovely, peaceful. But that arm: innocent, it looked just as dangerous.”
― Tana French, The Secret Place

“The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man's economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships. He does not act so as to safeguard his individual interest in the possession of material goods; he acts so as to safeguard his social standing, his social claims, his social assets. He values material goods only in so far as they serve this end. Neither the process of production nor that of distribution is linked to specific economic interests
attached to the possession of goods; but every single step in that process is geared to a number of social interests which eventually ensure that the required step be taken. These interests will be very different in a small hunting or fishing community from those in a vast despotic society, but in cither case the economic system will be run on noneconomic motives.”
― Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

“It is always wise to examine your motives before doing any act of kindness or goodness to make sure that your intentions are morally correct to the corrosion , erosion and corruption of the heart”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“The motives for giving are numerous, each rationale showing us something basic about who we really are behind the act of giving.”
― Dale S. Wright, Living Skillfully: Buddhist Philosophy of Life from the Vimalakirti Sutra

“Winds are changing,” Wit whispered.
Dalinar glanced at him.
Wit’s eyes narrowed, and he scanned the night sky. “It’s been happening for months now. A whirlwind. Shifting and churning, blowing us round and around. Like a world spinning, but we can’t see it because we’re too much a part of it.”
“World spinning. What foolishness is this?”
“The foolishness of men who care, Dalinar,” Wit said. “And the brilliance of those who do not. The second depend on the first—but also exploit the first—while the first misunderstand the second, hoping that the second are more like the first. And all of their games steal our time. Second by second.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings (4 of 5)

“The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”
― T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral