Good Motive Quotes & Sayings

She looks exactly like a - like a gimlet." Marilla smothered a smile under the conviction that Anne must be reproved for such a speech. "A little girl like you should be ashamed of talking so about a lady and a stranger," she said severely. "Go back and sit down quietly and hold your tongue and behave as a good girl should." "I'll try to do and be anything you want me, if you'll only keep me," said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman. When they arrived back at Green Gables that evening Matthew met them in the lane. Marilla from afar had noted him prowling along it and guessed his motive. She was prepared for the relief she read in his face when he saw that she had at least brought back Anne back with her. But she said nothing, to him, relative to the affair, until they were both out in the yard behind the barn milking the — L.M. Montgomery

The love of admiration leads to fraud, much more than the love of commendation; but, on the other hand, the latter is much more likely to spoil our: good actions by the substitution of an inferior motive. — Richard Whately

You'd better discover a more important motive than publication for your work or else you'll go crazy. My sense is that you'll be writers only if you are convinced that to write is something for which there is no substitute in your life. You must therefore be ambitious for your work rather than for its promotion. The good news here is that if you assign secondary importance to publishing and primary to writing itself, you will write better, and will thus increase your odds of getting publishing. — Sydney Lea

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we're told not to judge.
Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become. — Brennan Manning

The good diarist writes either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely hear every secret and justly weigh every motive. For such an audience there is need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask, detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land. — Virginia Woolf

The common ground where the activities of God and man become one is the motive of perfect love; for in the last resolve love is the essence of God's nature. When he thinks, love is his thought; when he wills, love is the product of his will. To the degree, therefore, that man thinks and wills the good
to the degree that he realizes love in his finite dealings
he interfuses himself with God. — Frank C. Lockwood

And if (as I said before) what we are matters even more than what we do - if, indeed, what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are - then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about. And this applies to my good actions too. How many of them were done for the right motive? How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off? How many from a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act? But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realise that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God. — C.S. Lewis

We find the vast majority of people in every country believing that there will be a time when this world will become perfect, when there will be no disease, nor death, nor unhappiness, nor wickedness. That is a very good idea, a very good motive power to inspire and uplift the ignorant. But if we think for a moment, we shall find on the very face of it that it cannot be so. How can it be, seeing that good and evil are the obverse and reverse of the same coin? How can you have good without evil at the same time? — Swami Vivekananda

Reason, in a strict sense, as meaning the judgment of truth and falsehood, can never, of itself, be any motive to the will, and can have no influence but so far as it touches some passion or affection. Abstract relations of ideas are the object of curiosity, not of volition. And matters of fact, where they are neither good nor evil, where they neither excite desire nor aversion, are totally indifferent, and whether known or unknown, whether mistaken or rightly apprehended, cannot be regarded as any motive to action. — David Hume

We'll choose knowledge no matter what, we'll maim ourselves in the process, we'll stick our hands into the flames for it if necessary. Curiosity is not our only motive; love or grief or despair or hatred is what drives us on. We'll spy relentlessly on the dead; we'll open their letters, we'll read their journals, we'll go through their trash, hoping for a hint, a final word, an explanation, from those who have deserted us
who've left us holding the bag, which is often a good deal emptier than we'd supposed. — Margaret Atwood

What is this intermediate step? Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment - is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion. — Kerry Patterson

The power generated of ten minds for good is superior to that of ten thousand minds acting on a lower motive. But it is a silent power. It moves in mysterious ways. It is noiseless. It makes no show of open opposition. It uses no methods of effort through tongue or arm or physical force. — Prentice Mulford

It is not enough for us to perform the works of virtue, exercising obedience, excepting poverty or disgrace or practicing humility or detachment in some other way; rather we should strive ceaselessly until we attain the essence and ground of virtue. And we can tell if we have attained this or not by asking whether we find ourselves inclined to virtue above all else and perform the works of virtue without prior preparation of the will, practicing virtue without the ulterior motive even of a great and good cause, so that the virtuous act in fact happen spontaneously on account of love of virtue and without asking 'what for?' Then and only then do we have the perfect possession of virtue. — Meister Eckhart

He fought because it was considered the 'thing to do,' because he liked the people he had to live with, and because those people wouldn't have a good opinion of him if he didn't fight. People never needed much of a philosophic motive to make them do the socially approved things. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime ... — Lord Acton

Every good impulse to which you yielded, every base or selfish one you resisted, every attitude you embraced or rejected, every word, every motive, every act ~ each registered its stamp upon your Self. All contributed to what you became. — Michael Phillips

Giddard presented them with a collection of Sulese memorabilia and commentaries. Loosely translated, some of them would have read: "The grass sparkled with dew droppings." Warton, I am not sure if that is intended as a beautiful or a horrible image. "I was tort to extinguish riyt from rong." Bede, apparently not. "Sulese are always inviting you to go for dinner to get murdered." Kian, it would seem from this that Sulese are enthusiastically hospitable, transparent of motive, and not very good at committing murder. All are grave errors. "Sulese food on heads with never eat hats." Cayde, Sulese order word important very is. It must learn you. — Jonathan Renshaw

In 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian imperial heir, was shot and killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. Do you know the motive behind the act?
It was in retaliation for the subjugation of the Sebs in Austria.
It was not.Franz Ferdinand had stated his intention to introduce reforms favorable to the Serbs in his empire. Had he survived to ascend the throne, he would have made a revolution unnecessary. In plain terms, he was killed because he was going to give the rebels what they were shouting for. They needed a despot in the palace in order to seize it.
What's good for reform is bad for the reformers — Loren D. Estleman

It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular; it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary. His entire life will be a priestly ministration. As he performs his never-so-simple task, he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of the hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. — A.W. Tozer

Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive power to the mad pace. — Kate Chopin

In the motive lies the good or ill. — Samuel Johnson

The mark of the "Noble Minded Man" is that he does not do things simply because they are pleasing or profitable to himself, but because they flow from an unconditional moral imperative. They are things that he sees to be right and good in themselves. Hence, anyone who is guided by the profit motive, even though it be for the profit of the society to which he belongs, is not capable of living a genuinely moral life. Even when his acts do not conflict with the moral law, they remain amoral because they are motivated by the desire of profit and not for the love of good. — Thomas Merton

The satisfaction that accompanies good acts is itself not the motivation of the act; satisfaction is not the motive, but only the consequence. — Joseph Butler

Some may say [journal keeping] is a great deal of trouble. But we should not call anything trouble which brings to pass good. I consider that portion of my life which has been spent in keeping journals and writing history to have been very profitably spent. - If there was no other motive in view [except] to have the privilege of reading over our journals and for our children to read, it would pay for the time spent in writing it. — Wilford Woodruff

Black Power If the motive is good, and there are no other possibilities, then seen most deeply it [violence] is nonviolence, because its aim is to help others. — Dalai Lama

Let therefore this PURE LOVE OF CHRIST prompt thee to all that is good; let this be the motive of mortifying thy flesh with all its desires: and let the remembrance of that death which he most willingly accepted for thee, make thee willing to lay down thy life for him; and out of sincere gratitude for all his inestimable benefits, to accept the cross at his hand, and to resist sin and the world even unto blood. — Johann Arndt

When our motive for good works is to garner the praise of others, we trade the glory of God for the glory of men. Glorious Lord, forgive me for the times I have exchanged Your glory for the praise of others. Help me keep my focus on You and You alone, rather than on the admiration of others. — Ava Pennington

We are drawn towards a thing, either because there is some good we are seeking from it, or because we cannot do without it. Sometimes the two motives coincide. Often however they do not. Each is distinct and quite independent. We eat distasteful food, if we have nothing else, because we cannot do otherwise. A moderately greedy man looks out for delicacies, but he can easily do without them. If we have no air we are suffocated, we struggle to get it, not because we expect to get some advantage from it but because we need it. We go in search of sea air without being driven by any necessity, because we like it. In time it often comes about automatically that the second motive takes the place of the first. This is one of the great misfortunes of our race. A man spokes opium in order to attain to a special condition, which he thinks superior; often, as time goes on, the opium reduces him to a miserable condition which he feels to be degrading; but he is no longer able to do without it. — Simone Weil

You need no proof, no reasons, no success, you need not achieve in fact the good of others - all you need to know is that your motive was the good of others, not your own. Your only definition of the good is a negation: the good is the 'non-good for me. — Ayn Rand

An action is essentially good if the motive of the agent be good, regardless of the consequences. — Immanuel Kant

The draft is a monstrous violation of individual liberty, and even a good motive cannot make it otherwise. In a free society no one should be compelled to take up arms, or be forced to kill or risk being killed ... But who can blame prospective volunteers from doubting that there is a threat from Iraq? The Bush administration has yet to make a persuasive argument to that effect. — Sheldon Richman

Birthed in a riotous sea of heat and violence, this world was never good, never peaceful, never without suffering, pain and anxiety. There was never an armistice between all living and not-so living things, nor can evidence be found to suggest there ever was - or still is - a loosely balanced war tumbling across Creation with the advantage swinging between the forces of light and happiness, and those of darkness and misery. Fire has always burned flesh, water has always drowned babies, and Creation has only ever exhibited but one impulse, one motive, one direction: towards increasing complexity, where complexity - across all systems, animate and inanimate - corresponds precisely to the degree and depth of potential suffering available to those contingent things whose participation in Creation was never solicited. — John Zande

A good working definition of fanaticism is that you are so convinced of your views and policies that you are sure that anyone who opposed them must be either stupid and decieved or have some ulterior motive. We are today a nation where almost everyone in the public eye displays fanaticism with every utterance. — Orson Scott Card

The primary motive for good care and good use of the land-community is always going to be affection, which is too often lacking. — Wendell Berry

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

The Unexpected stalks a farm in big boots like a vagrant bent on havoc. Not every farmer is an inventor, but the good ones have the seeds of invention within them. Economy and efficiency move their relentless tinkering and yet the real motive often seems to be aesthetic. The mind that first designed a cutter bar is not far different from a mind that can take the intractable steel of an outsized sickle blade and make it hum in the end. The question is how to reduce the simplicity that constitutes a problem ("It's simple; it's broke.") to the greater simplicity that constitutes a solution. — Verlyn Klinkenborg

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

The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot. — Criss Jami

Personal initiative, competitive selection, the profit motive, corrected by failure and the infinite process of good housekeeping and the personal ingenuity-here constitute the life of a free society. — Winston Churchill

There is a wrong turn we can make here. We could think that the Christian life is merely about doing good; that somehow seeking to help others would make up for the fact that we ignore God in our lives or that it is sufficient to do good for others without the motive of love for God behind our love for others. — Matt Perman

As water cannot rise higher than its source, so the moral quality in an act can never be higher than the motive that inspires it. For this reason no act that arises from an evil motive can be good, even though some good may appear to come out of it. Every deed done out of anger or spite, for instance, will be found at last to have been done for the enemy and against the kingdom of God. — A.W. Tozer

For, besides, that many persons find too sensible an interest in perpetually recalling such topics; besides this, I say, the motive of blind despair can never reasonably have place in the sciences; since, however unsuccessful former attempts may have proved, there is still room to hope, that the industry, good fortune, or improved sagacity of succeeding generations may reach discoveries unknown to former ages. — David Hume

Max's scarred brow crinkled. He reached for the coffee mug on his desk. "Motive is tricky. See, what might be a good reason for me to kill someone might not be a good enough reason for you to kill someone."
Swift stared at his hands loosely clasped around his ankle. "I wouldn't. Deliberately hurt anyone."
"And my impulse is to hurt anyone who hurts you." When Swift's gaze lifted to his, Max said, "See how that works?"
He did, and while it wasn't intended as a compliment, it did warm his heart in a funny way. He managed to joke, "Why, I think that's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me. — Josh Lanyon

I'm against the theory of the multinational corporations who say if you are
against hunger you must be for GMO. That's wrong, there is plenty of
natural, normal good food in the world to nourish the double of humanity.
There is absolutely no justification to produce genetically modified food
except the profit motive and the domination of the multinational
corporations. — Jean Ziegler

Give a good deed the credit of a good motive; and give an evil deed the benefit of the doubt. — Brander Matthews

It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion
the second, above it. — Charles Caleb Colton

If a man works without any selfish motive in view, does he not gain anything? Yes, he gains the highest. Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it. It is more paying from the point of view of health also. Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power. In the first place, a man who can work for five days, or even for five minutes, without any selfish motive whatever, without thinking of future, of heaven, of punishment, or anything of the kind, has in him the capacity to become a powerful moral giant. It is hard to do it, but in the heart of our hearts we know its value, and the good it brings. It is the greatest manifestation of power - this tremendous restraint; self-restraint is a manifestation of greater power than all outgoing action. — Swami Vivekananda

Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive. — Bernard De Mandeville

A man who says that no patriot should attack the [war] until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men ... he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all ... Granted that he states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions, what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common clergyman who wants to help the men. — G.K. Chesterton

In all of this she was only partially successful, for although Nurse knew that once Miss Venetia had made up her mind she was powerless to prevent her doing whatever she liked, and was obliged to admit some faint resemblance in Damerel to the Good Samaritan, she persisted in referring to him as The Ungodly, and in ascribing his charitable behaviour to some obscure but evil motive. She — Georgette Heyer

For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake. — Jean Giono

Individual ambition is undoubtedly a strong motive in student work, but there is such a thing among students everywhere as ambition for others, call it class spirit, esprit de corps, good fellowship, or good will to men. — Herbert Baxter Adams

Now, 'tis e'er the wont of simple folk to prize the deed and o'erlook the motive, and of learned folk to discount the deed and lay open the soul of the doer. Burlingame declared the difference 'twixt sour pessimist and proper gentleman lies just here: that one will judge good deeds by a morality of the motive and ill by a morality of deed, and so condemn the twain together, whereas your gentleman doth the reverse, and hath always grounds to pardon his wayward fellows. — John Barth

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 believe that any individual who has spiritually awakened in our time, to the degree that he or she finds a higher and deeper motive for living, is going to be driven to fight the good fight in one way or another ... And in order to fight the good fight, we have to engage, we have to get into the ring, not just stand outside it and be philosophers. — Andrew Cohen

Eisner mentioned he was uncomfortable calling Kirby someone with heavy artistic intent. I paraphrase, but Eisner felt Jack was mostly
concerned with hitting his page count, telling good stories, and
keeping his family fed. Not pursuing some aesthetic ideal - to seek
that motive in Kirby's work was, he suggested, misguided. I happened to be holding the original artwork to the Devil Dinosaur #4 double-splash, which I turned around and showed Eisner - who took a moment, and said something uncharacteristic: Okay, I might be wrong. — Glen David Gold

What I do know now, and didn't know then is that, in the long run, 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 their course, it's the good we did that can save us. — Gregory David Roberts

I've been pretty good at reading people. If you rockin' with me cause you're just a solid individual, then we're rockin'. But if you got a motive or something, I am going to probably see right through that. — Marshawn Lynch

Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. — Ayn Rand

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue. — Charles Caleb Colton

Aesthetic enthusiasm. Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed. The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations. — George Orwell

Motive matters more with good deeds than it does with bad. — Gregory David Roberts

If you are to go to Christ, do not put on your good doings and feelings, or you will get nothing; go in your sins, they are your livery. Your ruin is your argument for mercy; your poverty is your plea for heavenly alms; and your need is the motive for heavenly goodness. Go as you are, and let your miseries plead for you. — Charles Spurgeon

As a motive for terror, religion has more often than not required a good deal of lubrication by lucre. — Margaret Thatcher

The noblest motive is the public good. — Virgil

The only motive that can keep politics pure is the motive of doing good for one's country and its people. — Henry Ford

The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head and he picks it up and buy victuals with it, the physical effect is good. But with respect to me the action is very wrong. — Samuel Johnson

We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be "taught a lesson," when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained we felt bad, when in fact we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom. This subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underlie the smallest act or thought. Learning daily to spot, admit, and correct these flaws is the essence of character-building and good living. An honest regret for harms done, a genuine gratitude for blessings received, and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent assets we shall seek. — Alcoholics Anonymous

There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers. — John Franklin Bardin

Right and wrong, good and bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct - of acts and omissions; there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead, either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to act right, often leading people to act wrong. Consistently carrying out the doctrine, that the object of praise and blame should be the discouragement of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, he refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the motive of the agent. — Christopher Hitchens

Humans all have the instinct to determine right from wrong and wrong from right. Religion plays no factor in morals and ethical motive. Did your instinct never tell you that you were doing something wrong when you did? Did your heart never feel the warmth of a good deed? Instinct gave you morals. You gave yourself morals. The whole argument that religion helps us distinguish the difference between right and wrong is buncombe. — J.C. Wickhart

The human race is where everyone is under control by other people, no one controls his own life; the best thing you can ever do is to choose somebody who controls your life with good motive. — Aiden Mccoy

There is another difference between my grandfather and James B. Duke that may finally be more important than any other, and this was a difference of kinds of pleasure. We may assume that, as a boomer, moving from one chance of wealth to another, James B. Duke wanted only what he did not yet have. If it is true that he was in this way typical of his kind, then his great pleasure was only in prospect, which excludes affection as a motive. My grandfather, on the contrary, and despite his life's persistent theme of hardship, took a great and present delight in the modest good that was at hand: in his place and his affection for it, in its pastures, animals, and crops. — Wendell Berry

It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions. Our faculties furnish us with no means of arriving at the motive, the character, the secret self. We call the tree good from its fruits, and the man, from his works. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A strengthened national spirit can provide the motive power to rise our people from the depths and ... pour new life and vigor in the national system.
The reinvigoration of the national spirit must take place in the grass roots, in every city, town and barrio in the Philippines, and it must start among our own people ... To be a worthy citizen of the world one must first prove himself to be a good Filipino. — Carlos P. Romulo

I am not tormented, Fern responded. I am ... diminished. I have always believed that your soul grows when you do something that is good and brave, a right thing, a true thing, and when you do evil- no matter what the motive- your soul is eroded. Well, my soul is less. — Jan Siegel

I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves - which of course is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service. — Peace Pilgrim

At its most intense, the admissions process didn't force kids to be Lisa Simpson; it turned them into Eddie Haskell. ("You look lovely in that new dress, Ms. Admissions Counselor.") It guaranteed that teenagers would pursue life with a single ulterior motive, while pretending they weren't. It coated their every undertaking in a thin lacquer of insincerity. Befriending people in hopes of a good rec letter; serving the community to advertise your big heart; studying hard just to puff up the GPA and climb the greasy poll of class rank - nothing was done for its own sake. Do good; do well; but make sure you can prove it on a college app. So — Andrew Ferguson

Any human being who accepts the help of another, knows that good will is the giver's only motive and that good will is the payment he owes in return. — Ayn Rand

We are thankful for good-will rather than for services, for the motive than the quantum of favor received. — William Hazlitt

We must not only do what is right. We must act for the right reasons. The modern term is good motive. The scriptures often signify this appropriate mental attitude with the words full purpose of heart or real intent. The scriptures make clear that God understands our motives and will judge our actions accordingly. — Dallin H. Oaks

And Mrs. Orton had the seizure right after you applied the lipstick?"
Reggie's voice was dead serious.
Drea nodded.
That little tidbit set off Cam's warning sirens. Not good.
Reggie closed his notebook and deposited it in his inner jacket pocket. "Can you think of anything else?"
Drea opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head.
Christ. So she had a possible motive, opportunity, means to kill Natasha Orton, and she was obviously holding something back. She may not be the only suspect, but even Cam had to admit she was a mighty good one. — Avery Flynn

Writer's block comes from the feeling that one is doing the
wrong thing or doing the right thing badly. Fiction written for
the wrong reason may fail to satisfy the motive behind it and
thus may block the writer, as I've said; but there is no wrong
motive for writing fiction. At least in some instances, good
fiction has come from the writer's wish to be loved, his wish
to take revenge, his wish to work out his psychological woes,
his wish for money, and so on. No motive is too low for art;
finally it's the art, not the motive, that we judge. — John Gardner

No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away. — Carrie Fisher

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

Why the delay? Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive, on this planet? ... He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us; we are, in fact, at the center of his plan ... the motive behind all human history, is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers in the universe that restoration is under way. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job's reverberates throughout the universe. — Philip Yancey

The way we've set up corporations, even a majority vote of stockholders cannot demand that a corporation's policies reflect the public good or preserve the environment for future use. That's because profit is the one and only motive. It's up to government and it's up to people to protect the public interest. Corporations are simply not allowed to. — David Suzuki

To be human is, primarily, to embrace that we are human with strengths and weaknesses, and that our humanity is preordained to seek the Truth, Good and Beauty as part of our humanity. To be human is to be an agent of peace, justice, and reconciliation in our community or society. To be human is to be heroic and generous in an unobtrusive way, free from any selfish motive, with no media to show the litany of our good deeds. To be human is to have time to listen to the story of a grieving soul, to give hope to the hopeless, to give love to the unloved.(Danny Castillones Sillada, A reason to be Human: Human Pathos and Compassion) — Danny Castillones Sillada

The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself. — Ramakrishna

The key trait of a Sperm Pirate is that she is not driven by desperation. Escaping poverty or hardship is not her motive. She usually has a good education and access to the same opportunities as the man she tries to trap. However, she understands that it is more efficient to enjoy a lavish lifestyle through the sweat of another's labour. But the Sperm Pirate is acutely aware that the infatuation of a hormonal man has a brief shelf life. This poor collateral must be cashed in before it expires. A pregnancy is the best way to convert this volatile resource into a stable asset. Babies are reliable insurance policies. They create legal obligations for financial support, even when the sweet milk of passion turns sour. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That's just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is. — Ben Bradlee

Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder. It isn't something you do the first time you think of doing it. It takes getting used to. And you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind. — Susanna Kaysen

That kind always has the public good as a motive to justify every abomination. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. and sooner than that I should seek escape from the sacred necessity that is laid upon me, let the breath of life fail me. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God's holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people; to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, to which Bible and Creation bear witness, until the nation pays homage again to God — Abraham Kuyper

Gurion would lament: What is the good of trying to do justice if God will kill me and my family whether or not I do justice? — Adam Levin

We could scrub the floor for a tired friend, or dress a wound for a patient in a hospital, or lay the table and wash up for the family; but we shall not do it in martyr spirit or with that worse spirit of self-congratulation, of feeling that we are making ourselves more perfect, more unselfish, more positively kind.

We shall do it just for one thing, that our hands make Christ's hands in our life, that our service may let Christ serve through us, that our patience may bring Christ's patience back to the world. — Caryll Houselander

[A]s it is impossible that any man endowed with rational faculties, and being in a state of freedom, should willingly agree, without some motive of love or friendship, absolutely to sacrifice his own interest to that of another; it becomes necessary to impose upon him, to persuade him, that his own good is designed, and that he will be a gainer by coming into those schemes, which are, in reality, calculated for his destruction. And this, if I mistake not, is the very essence of that excellent art, called the art of politics. — Henry Fielding

Where destruction is the motive, unity is dangerous. For example, if I have evil intent and I galvanize that evil intent with many others, the capacity to destroy is immense. Where goodness is the motive, unity is phenomenal and actually has some good issues to it. — Ravi Zacharias

Lies are just another kind of storytelling, but with the very distinct and enlivening motive of desperation. Since writers are by nature desperate creatures, they usually do a pretty good (or pretty awful, but always interesting) job of lying. — John Hodgman

Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: "That is because our barricade is made of good intentions. — Victor Hugo