Quotes About Motive

What seems like generosity is often but a disguised ambition, which overlooks little interests, in order to gratify great ones.

We talk on principle, but we act on interest.

Sebastian never does anything just for fun." Jace took Clary's hand and pulled her toward him. "But I do.

If one wanted to gain real understanding of Speer, one had to realize first that almost everything he did–though, as shown by some of our talks, not quite everything–had a purpose, generally directed towards his own benefit.

What about Kost, sir? He's a foreigner, you know." "Yes," said the inspector, allowing to pass unchallenged the usual English implication that foreigners are always either lunatics or criminals or both, "but the motive?

So you will be...  What you 'will' to be

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught.

The right reason and motive for success, while pursued in the right way, will trigger divine support, human celebration and personal fulfillment because the endeavor becomes bigger than oneself.

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, that's fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

The main question ... is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law.

Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

A man who goes forth to take the life of another whom he does not know must believe only one thing: that by his act he will change the course of history.

When a man carries an instrument of violence, he'll always find the justification to use it.

A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.

Cruel and cold is the judgment of man, Cruel as winter, and cold as the snow; But by-and-by will the deed and the plan Be judged by the motive that lieth below.

Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man's life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?

Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.

There are few illicit pleasures greater than that of causing pain to others for their own, or some higher, good.

Many are secretly seeking their own ends in what they do, yet know it not.

The performance of an action is worthless in itself, if it is not done out of charity. Charity must be our motive; then everything we do, however little and insignificant, bears a rich harvest. After all, what God takes into account is not so much the thing we do, as the love that went to the doing of it.

A person usually has two reasons for doing something, a good reason and the real reason.

You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.