Quotes About Motives

Lo que cuentan no son los actos, sino los motivos, no las palabras, sino los sentimientos.

It is a human failing, to attribute the best of motives to those we know the least, and the worst to those we love best.

One hundred percent of the time there is a good reason and a real reason for everything.

The spreading of the Gospel, regardless of the motives or the integrity or the heroism of some of the missionaries, was an absolutely indispensable justification for the planting of the flag.

We've been very bad at understanding why the right-wing does things.

I think about and study people. I think I make people uneasy sometimes by being so curious as to why they do what they do. I find myself thinking about this fairly obsessively, and I can't stop until I've found an answer.

Evolutionary psychologists seem to want to unmask our noblest motives as ultimately self-interested - to show that our love for children, compassion for the unfortunate and sense of justice are just tactics in a Darwinian struggle to perpetuate our genes.

Every soul is a soul. It is the motives, deeds and actions that define the personality of each soul.

Be weary of the selfish givers, those who do something for a hidden fee.

You don't 'love' people when they are 'nice'. Don't you see that's the same as saying 'what's in it for me'?

Men who just call to say hello generally have ulterior motives.

Never judge a man's actions until you know his motives

Man sees your actions, but God your motives.

Man considers the actions, but God weighs the intentions.

When one has extensively pondered about men, as a career or as a vocation, one sometimes feels nostalgic for primates. At least they do not have ulterior motives.

When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.

Prudent men lock up their motives, letting familiars have a key to their hearts, as to their garden.

Men are more accountable for their motives, than for anything else; and primarily, morality consists in the motives, that is in the affections.

Man created language to be understood. It should be normal to understand what people convey to us. Fear, ulterior motives, and closed mindedness are the enemies of understanding.

Im a peaceful man with bad intentions.

A great many men's gratitude is nothing but a secret desire to hook in more valuable kindnesses hereafter.

I have always found men quite fathomable. They look entirely to their own interest.

We all lie to serve a purpose, Eric. By omission or commission, we all know when to lie. Parents lie to children about reality all the time, a most heinous and culpable offense since it does not involve the way reality is perceived. But, then as now, lying can be seen as a sign of extreme care. It all has to do with the motive and ethic behind the lie, doesn't it?

There is one final bad-news punch line to my life. This bad news is complicated, difficult to explain. In a nutshell, it's that I am pretty sure that my dad is planning to kill me. The good news is that he'd be doing this out of his love for me. The bad news is that whatever the wonderfulness of his motives, I'll be dead.