Quotes About Motives

there was a little too much of the best intentions going on

Actuated by no personal motives, but moved only by high and great constitutional considerations; which I will not attempt to explain, for they are really beneath the comprehension of those who have not made themselves masters, as I have, of the intricate and arduous study of politics; I would rather keep my seat, and intend doing so.

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity.

When do you manipulate others for your own advantage? When I notice myself doing it, usually it is when I am feeling insecure.

Be thoroughly assured of the constancy of your disposition, and the solidity of your motives, before you totally engage in retirement.

May I ask," I asks, asking, "what you are trying to do with your time traveling and what you do when you have traveled time? Your motives are obscure, your methods abstruse, your results intangible.

Pure motives are prerequisite to the ability to call down the powers of heaven. The Lord will not sustain your efforts to achieve, excel or receive special blessings if your desires are vain.

I don't know why they're doing it. I have to assume that their motives are positive, not negative. But they don't understand the severity of the problem in this state.

Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images. It is only images that terrify or attract them and become motives of action.

It is as interesting to decipher the motives of the actions of men as to determine the characteristics of a mineral or a plant.

Devin wondered how often men did what they did, made the choices of their lives, for reasons that were clean and uncomplicated and easily understood as they were happening

The reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is they think 'conspiracy' means everybody's on the same program. That's not how it works. Everybody's got a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebody's wife.

Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.

The fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason," I said. "Anything perceived has a cause. All conclusions have premises. All effects have causes. All actions have motives.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

Women don't require motives that are comprehensible to my intellectual processes.

Understanding government can be a complex business. The stated reason for a policy and the real reason for it are rarely the same.

I've become good at judging whether a girl wants to be around you just because she's after your status or because you're popular.

God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without gas.

A second way in which our motives influence the kind of evidence we entertain involves whose opinions, expert or otherwise, we consult. We can often anticipate other people's general beliefs and overall orientations, and thus can predict with some accuracy their views on a particular question. By judiciously choosing the right people to consult, we can increase our chances of hearing what we want to hear.

People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives

How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.

The things we do or want without reasons, and without requiring reasons - the things that define what is a reason for us and what is not-are the starting points of our skepticism. 

With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.