Quotes About Motives

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions.

It saddens me when public officials and bureaucrats are criticized for ulterior motives, none of which I have ever found in a government bureaucrat, or when someone personalizes disagreements.

I feel like, especially in Hollywood, you meet people with ulterior motives, who are trying to get something from you.

People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.

We need to expose the motives of our political leaders, point out their connections to corporate power, show how huge profits are being made out of death and suffering.

Those who give hoping to be rewarded with honor are not giving, they are bargaining.

Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.

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

Even the wisdom of God hath not suggested more pressing motives, more powerful incentives to charity, than these, that we shall be judged by it at the last dreadful day.

There are occasions and causes, why and wherefore in all things.

Achieving the good life is more a matter of being than of doing or giving. It calls for intense self-scrutiny, a relentless honesty about one's motives, and a persistent feeling that we are no better—and perhaps worse—than those we are trying to help.

Laura also thought that the law had done a great deal to spoil Henry. It had changed his natural sturdy stupidity into a browbeating indifference to other people's point of view. He seemed to consider himself briefed by his Creator to turn into ridicule the opinions of those who disagreed with him, and to attribute dishonesty, idiocy, or a base motive to every one who supported a better case than he.

Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.

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.

Profits. Joe, if you want to use just one word"—and Mr. Healey wagged a huge finger at Joseph—"to describe wars and the making of wars, it's profits. Nothing else. Profits.

What distinguishes the heptapods' mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history's events; it is also that their motives coincide with history's purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.

The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don't act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons. What distinguishes the heptapods' mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history's events; it is also that their motives coincide with history's purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.

I don't want to impugn the motives of my colleagues, but my attitude is, speaking just for me, you either believe in border security or you don't.

It is hard to imagine any single special interest trying to buy an office without a motive.

There are no perfect men in this world, only perfect intentions.

A man must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings.

To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.

Every action taken by human beings is based in love or fear, not simply those dealing with relationships.