Quotes About Motives

Brood, you and I, we have fought the Malazans as liberators in truth. Asking no coin, no land. Our motives aren't even clear to us – imagine how they must seem to the Empress? Inexplicable. We appear to be bound to lofty ideals, to nearly outrageous notions of self-sacrifice. We are her enemy, and I don't think she even knows why.

People were the same everywhere, no matter what lofty vows they proclaimed. Help was given only in the hope of its being reciprocated. Expectations of reward lurked behind every act of altruism.

Maybe that fits. Maybe it's only right that we should be the ones to raise your standard, Fallen One. And ignorant historians will write of us, in the guise of knowledge. They will argue over our purpose – the things we sought to do. They will overturn every boulder, every barrow stone, seeking our motives. Looking for hints of ambition. They will compose a Book of the Fallen.

Evidence suggests that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories is driven by motives that can be characterized as epistemic (needing to understand one's environment), existential (needing to feel safe and in control of one's environment), and social (needing to maintain a positive image of oneself and one's in-group) (Douglas et al., 2017).

I don't know why he did it to me. I wish I did. Was it because he hated me, or because he didn't care one way or the other?

As I spoke, I wondered myself why I was taking this deception so far, why I was hurting this lovely, gentle soul whom Metatron trusted above all others. I was poisoning their relationship with my words. Why was I doing this? Was it simply to protect Beth and Avirzah'e? I could no longer be certain of my motives.

Aninka regarded Taziel speculatively. She could swear that he'd somehow decided to keep Daniel for himself, but she wasn't sure of his reason for that. Simple altruism just didn't ring true.

Principles, convictions and motives are neither sold nor bargained for!

I've been pretty good at reading people. If you rockin' with me cause you're just a solid individual, then we're rockin'. But if you got a motive or something, I am going to probably see right through that.

I kind of stumbled into acting, even though I've always been fascinated by people and kind of their motives, and it's been amazing to me, everything I read before about psychology, philosophy, just to put it into practice somehow.

But I must admit that my motives were no entirely noble; there were in me at least some elements of the anger and hurt vanity that characterize a spurned lover, and these unworthy sentiments helped me to keep my distance.

One of you is obviously lying. How on earth do I figure out which one? You both have something to gain.

This points to a nagging and important question about free-market ideologues: Are they 'true believers', driven by ideology and faith that free markets will cure underdevelopment, as is often asserted, or do the ideas and theories frequently serve as an elaborate rationale to allow people to act on unfettered greed while still invoking an altruistic motive?

they are listed in the approximate order of their importance and greatest usefulness: The motive of self-preservation The motive of financial gain The motive of love The motive of sexuality The motive of desire for power and fame The motive of fear The motive of revenge The motive of freedom (of body and mind) The motive of desire to create or build in thought or in material

Is he aware of both—and unaware? Can the mind ride two such separate tracks simultaneously? Concealed ambivalence. Hidden ambiguity. Are we so flawed that we can never truly know our own most secret motives?

The majority of people call or message me because they need something or they want something. You never know what people's intentions are.

We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money....

Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard's motives in opening the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or or in our friends...

He was a selfish customer, always thinking less of what he was going to do than of what he was going to gain by his doings.

Postpone to the great object of Liberty every smaller motive and passion.

Perhaps in the end the first real step toward peace would be a realistic acceptance of the fact that our political ideals are perhaps to a great extent illusions and fictions to which we cling out of motives that are not always perfectly honest: that because of this we prevent ourselves from seeing any good or any practicability in the political ideals of our enemies—which may, of course, be in many ways even more illusory and dishonest than our own.

Who am I to know my own  motives. But I did foolhardy things.

I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, "It wasn't until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right's real motive: protecting segregated schools."33