Quotes About Motives

Nobody does anything for one reason.

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

A novel makes it possible to understand not just events, but the people who control the events; not only their choices, but also their motives.

I am still very observant. I am absorbed by people and why they do what they do.

Each power entered the Crimean War with its own motives. Nationalism and imperial rivalries combined with religious interests.

Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.

Ningún ser humano es indigno cuando se comprenden sus motivos. Ninguna vida deja de merecer la pena. Incluso el más malvado de entre los hombres, si conoces su intimidad, tiene algún acto generoso que le redime de sus pecados, aunque sólo sea un poco generoso.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

One is so apt nowadays to regard even one's own motives and actions during the War with a contemptuous cynicism that it is as well to remind oneself of emotions which were profoundly and sincerely felt.

The Master said, "If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment.

If you look at their intentions, examine their motives, and scrutinize what brings them contentment – how can people hide who they are? How can they hide who they really are?

There was a warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.

If you go back to that psychological document we call the New Testament, you'll find that it says the devil is 'the father of lies. Now the shadow never lies; it's the ego that lies about its real motives. That's why successful psychotherapy, and any genuine religious conversion, requires absolute honesty about oneself.

J. Pierpont Morgan observed, in one of his analytical interludes, that a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one. The person himself will think of the real reason. You don't need to emphasize that. But all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives.

One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.

This, indeed, Charles Edward considered as a lady's secret; for although Rose's letter was couched in the most cautious and general terms, and professed to be written merely from motives of humanity and zeal for the Prince's service, yet she expressed so anxious a wish that she should not be known to have interfered, that the Chevalier was induced to suspect the deep interest which she took in Waverley's safety.

The automobile is technologically more sophisticated than the bundling board, but the human motives in their uses are sometimes the same.

Fabre believed that the methods of science must be consistent with our motives for knowing.

Scorpio is the most intense sign of the Zodiac, and is associated with sexual activity and with the symbolism of death and rebirth. Their emotions run deep. They may suffer in life, but their pain leads to important personal transformation. Scorpios are a shrewd judge of other people's motives. When they work out their issues to be more in line with their own higher nature, they can take on the charismatic power of a natural healer, transforming themselves and society around them.

One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.

I have always been taught… that every man is divinely called to his work, if that work is for the good of all men. His faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the call is revealed in the motives that prompt him to choose his field.

For the thief and the humanitarian each have the same motive — to do what he believes will make him feel good. In fact, we can't avoid a very significant conclusion: Everyone is selfish.

If you give a man a gift because you hope he will award a particular contract to you, you are obviously demonstrating a lack of confidence in your ability to make your normal services profitable to him. And if you're doing it because your competitors are, then you're suggesting that the prospect really isn't a very ideal customer.

The first step in trying to get along with other people is to realize that each is doing what he wants to do. Examine his actions, uncover the motives for his acts, find out why he wants to do as he does. And, as we'll see further along, this will give you the opportunity to earn his respect and cooperation to an extent that others can never obtain.