We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for…

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

— Thomas Jefferson

Good deeds with bad motives and bad intentions does no one any good...

— Anonymous

“how could I have been so naive before, thinking perhaps everyone had good motives, that everyone has a good side to them, even though…

— Lotus Rose

People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.

— Eugene Ionesco

“if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the…

— Donna Tartt

Whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is a good action. Everything which is done with the stain of…

— Ramana Maharshi

Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

— Ayn Rand

I learned then that practically no one in the world is entirely bad or entirely good, and that motives are often more important than…

— Eleanor Roosevelt

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good…

— Oswald Chambers

Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives.

— Ben Bernanke

Why Christians do what they do is just as important as what they do. Bad motives ruin good acts.

— John Piper

“Deeds done from bad motives remain everlastingly tainted.”

— Thích Nhất Hạnh

I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings.

— Graham Greene

“It helps that I know God’s motives are good even when he allows bad things to happen.”

— Lynette Eason

“motive matters more with good deeds than it does with bad. When all the guilt and shame for the bad we've done have run…

— Anonymous