Motive Quotes
782 quotes by 571 authors
-
Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects…
— Teresa of Avila
-
Young gentlemen, who are to display their knowledge to the world, should have every motive of emulation, should be formed into regular classes, should read…
— Anna Letitia Barbauld
-
You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.
— Stanley Baldwin
-
If you're against globalisation, it doesn't achieve much by sort of bombing the head offices of Shell or Nestle. You unsettle people much more by…
— J. G. Ballard
-
Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.
— James M. Barrie
-
That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
— Joseph Addison
-
God made man to go by motives, and he will not go without them, any more than a boat without steam or a balloon without…
— Henry Ward Beecher
-
Would we not do well to have the pleasing of God as our motive rather than to try to elevate ourselves above our brother and…
— Ezra Taft Benson
-
We acknowledge but one motive - to follow the truth as we know it, whithersoever it may lead us; but in our heart of hearts…
— Mortimer Adler
-
It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
— Jean de la Bruyere
-
We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and…
— Robert Byrd
-
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
— Lord Byron
-
To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.
— Lord Byron
-
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
— Miguel de Cervantes
-
Do I get up every morning and ask: am I doing the things that I believe in and am I doing them for the best…
— Nick Clegg
-
It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism…
— Gilbert K. Chesterton
-
There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind…
— Alexander Hamilton
-
We went all the way down the Himalayan chain for a day and a half. That was magnificent, except the Chinese told us they were…
— Richard Branson
-
Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are…
— Toni Morrison
-
...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion…
— Arthur Koestler
Who Wrote These Motive Quotes
571 authors contributed a total of 782 Motive Quotes, led by these top contributors: