Quotes About Motives

They had a much more fundamental problem with the market: greed. Market motives were held to be inherently corrupt. The moment that greed was validated and unlimited profit was considered a perfectly viable end in itself, this political, magical element became a genuine problem, because it meant that even those actors—the brokers, stock-jobbers, traders—who effectively made the system run had no convincing loyalty to anything, even to the system itself.

If my life be not my own, it were criminal for me to put it in danger, as well as to dispose of it; nor could one man deserve the appellation of hero, whom glory or friendship transports into the greatest dangers, and another merit the reproach of wretch or misereant who puts a period to his life, from the same or like motives.

I have rightfully no other business each day but to do God's work as a servant, constantly regarding His pleasure. May I have grace to live above every human motive, simply with God and to God.

God's standard of judgment goes down to the intents of the heart.

So our building of the visible Church becomes much like any natural business function, using natural means and natural motives.

Motives reveal why we do what we do, which is actually more important to God than what we're doing.

It is because of the hasty and superficial conversation with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you to hate and flee from sin as you should.

A gift without a heart behind it is a bribe. God asks for our heart, not our gifts.

We may say simply that in the sight of God we are judged not so much by what we do as by our reasons for doing it.

I also try to weigh my motives. Am I doing what I'm doing because it's what God desires, or because I'm afraid people will be disappointed if I don't?

Bad decisions, good intentions.

A lot of times people's main motives and plan in life is to hurt as many people as they can, but I think there's enough good people that help make the world a good place.

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

Hell is full of good intentions.

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God.

We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.

Good intentions are wicked! As far as I can see, all they lead to are lies and delusions.

Malice will always find bad motives for good actions. - Shall we therefore never do good?

Whenever government proposes to get involved in the regulation of trade, just be very, very careful about who's behind this proposal, what their motives are.

It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.

There's so many great things that come with being successful. The one thing that is weird is trying to figure out whose intentions are in the right place, and who is really on your team.

It is often hard to determine whether a clear, open, and honorable proceeding is the result of goodness or of cunning.

Being nice merely to be liked in return nullifies the point.