Quotes About Motives

I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.

But what a way to do things-never to perform a decent action until you are kicked into it and the rest of the world has ceased to believe that your motives can possibly be honest.

Somos diferentes de todas las oligarquías del pasado porque sabemos lo que estamos haciendo. Todos los demás, incluso los que se parecían a nosotros, eran cobardes o hipócritas. Los nazis alemanes y los comunistas rusos se acercaban mucho a nosotros por sus métodos, pero nunca tuvieron el valor de reconocer sus propios motivos.

In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive.

Most things a person does," she said to the dark liquid of the goblet, "they do for several complicated reasons. I'm rarely certain that my motives are pure.

Art needs motives that are more profound than profit if it is to maintain its difference from—and position above—other cultural forms.

You refused to believe that I preserved your life in Tal Verrar for reasons of conscience. Now I give you the self-interested motive you previously insisted upon, and you refuse to believe it as well. Are you really that arrogant, that logic is as optional as a fashion accessory for you?

Occasionally we all do wrong things from right motives. Only time can prove us right or wrong. The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway?

The Government's repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information. 'No doubt it is not popular to say these things,' Churchill had written to his wife on 26 September 1935, 'but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth.' During

The Government's repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information.

Well," said I, "you call that love, Mr. Carruthers, but I should call it selfishness." "Maybe the two things go together.

Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control. For we cannot alter our heart; its basis is determined by motives; and our head deals with objective facts, and applies to them rules which are immutable. Any given individual is the union of a particular heart with a particular head.

They were not ministering to God but to the pride of their own hearts.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.

In an old war, everybody has an ax to grind.

When, as the researchers put it, "life's fragility is primed," people's goals and motives in their everyday lives shift completely. It's perspective, not age, that matters most. Tolstoy

When, as the researchers put it, "life's fragility is primed," people's goals and motives in their everyday lives shift completely. It's perspective, not age, that matters most.

When life's fragility is primed peoples goals and motives in their every day lives shift completely. It's perspective not age that matters most.

In each case the results were consistent. When, as the researchers put it, "life's fragility is primed," people's goals and motives in their everyday lives shift completely. It's perspective, not age, that matters most.

Aren't they all acting on a selfish motive—to be noticed, liked, admired?" "—by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest importance—the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought—they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it.

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

she was still uncomfortable about her own motives and afraid to examine them too deeply

The Maker knows the motives of men's hearts.

Although actions may speak louder than words, it is our intentions that reveal our soul.