Quotes About Motives

There is a final resource to which I've resorted when necessary—the imagination. I have done this with judicious care, imagining for my reader only what I already know is very likely, and even then only when an informed speculation can set these documents into their proper context. Where I have been unable to explain events or motives, I have left them unexplained, out of respect for their hidden realities.

he never comes to see us unless he wants something. Find out what it is, tell him "no," and let us be off.

Wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts. 1 Corinthians 4:5

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.

Today, any movie that didn't show Rick and Ilsa sweatily grappling with each other's naked bodies in Rick's apartment above the café would be considered old-fashioned. But graphic sex wipes out ambiguity, and the ambiguity in Casablanca, the uncertainty about events and motives, is one of the things that still entices us.

Commitment is a word invented in our abstract modernity to signify the absence of any real motives in the soul for moral dedication.

There are 6 reasons that a person does anything: Love, faith, greed, boredom, fear... revenge.

Criticism always seemed to me a lot like police work. You look for clues, fingerprints, motives. You need to construct an airtight case.

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

I think a lot of things are shoved in our face, politically and historically, for money, and that's the motive.

Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.

What I like about 'Taboo' just in general, even in writing it, you are not certain what the motives are sometimes because these characters are so odd that you let them speak for themselves and you're never quite sure where it's headed.

The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives—altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter.

The Bible is not a tool for sharpening our religious competence, but a living and active sword for cleaving our double-minded thoughts and motives, exposing and transforming the contents of our hearts.

And, on a bad day, the methods and motives of the source will be challenged

Why do we do the things that we do?

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it!

We must move away from domain control to domain denial, since our only motive to be on the ground in the Greater Middle East and Central Asia is for smackdown or disruption purposes. (In retrospect, that is how we should have handled Afghanistan after 9/11.)

After all, good intentions have little to do with positive outcomes

He said that to reach the level of surrender God requires, we should keep a close watch on the motives and impulses that mingle in both spiritual and physical affairs. God gives seeing eyes to those who truly want to serve and know Him.

The people around you are generally mysterious. You are never quite sure about their intentions. They present an appearance that is often deceptive—their manipulative actions don't match their lofty words or promises. All of this can prove confusing. Seeing people as they are, instead of what you think they should be, would mean having a greater sense of their motives.

Too much attention early on will actually just suggest insecurity, and raise doubts as to your motives. Worst of all, it gives your targets no room for imagination.