Quotes About Motive

Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.

It's not what we do, so much as why we do it.

We talk on principle, but we act on interest.

Every why hath a wherefore.

'Tis the motive exalts the action, 'Tis the doing, and not the deed.

Why would I kill someone I don't know, when I know so many people who irritate me, and havent't killed any of them?

Some people just like to kill. Sometimes it's not any more complicated than that." "It should be," Peabody replied

Why would I kill someone I don't know, when I know so many people who irritate me, and haven't killed any of them?

Do you wonder, ever, what makes a person capable of taking a life when there's no threat to his own or another? What makes them end life, and so often, so very often, with real cruelty, even with pleasure.

I think that, anybody with a strong will to tell a story, then that is fantastic. I think it's fantastic. I think sometimes people have what I'll call an ulterior motive with a story.

I try to be careful with my persuasiveness. When my heart is really behind it, and when I have no ulterior motive, then I know I'm truly persuasive.

Krishna is the higher Self, or God. He sees through the argument at once. In this case [the motive] is weakness.

This confirms a long-held belief of mine that lexical order induces thermodynamic order. The lexical order of an amulet reinforces the order a body already possesses, thus providing protection against damage. The lexical order of an animating name increases the order of a body, thus providing motive power for an automaton.

That man is the most loyal who aims at the noblest motive, and that motive the public good.

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. Let us be like the man of the frontier and always reveal with utmost honesty our real reasons for all that we do.

The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.

Motive is tricky, and you can't ascribe a motive and then try to make it fit the crime.

On the subject of motive, there are, generally speaking, six major motives for murder. Ready? They

On the subject of motive, there are, generally speaking, six major motives for murder. Ready? They are profit, revenge, jealousy, concealment of a crime, avoidance of humiliation or disgrace, and homicidal mania.

I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.

There is a tendency on the left, to think if someone in any way disagrees with the left it must be for the lowest possible reason and if you found the lowest possible motive you have found the right one. Theres this whole culture of no one would leave us or quarrel with us if they weren't a sellout. It is actually a very sick mentality and very widespread.

Hannah Arendt once wrote that the great success of Stalinism among the intellectuals could be attributed to one annihilating tactic. Stalinism replaced all debate about the merit of an argument, or a position, or even a person, with an inquiry about motive.

You don't have to explain why a character pulled the kid from the freezing river, but there better be a pretty good reason why he held that kid under.

One doesn't commit evil actions in the belief that one is acting wrongly. What allows one to commit such acts is the belief that it will contribute to a greater good.