Quotes about Motive

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

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

Indeed we are most of us brought up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is something irrespective of the beings who would suffer the wrong.

One cannot use an evil action with reference to a good intention.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes; chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.

But how could you guess what the motive was?

Let your light shine before others, sothat they may see your good works." So the motive at stake is not simply whether you want your acts to be known by others, but why you want them to be known—that God be glorified, or that you be admired.

God, who in the beginning was the creator, appears in the end as revenger and rewarder. Deference to such a God admittedly can produce virtuous actions; however, because fear of punishment or hope for reward are their motive, these actions will not be purely moral; on the contrary, the inner essence of such virtue will amount to prudent and carefully calculating egoism.

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.

Does the mind will, in any given manner, without a motive, cause or ground, which renders the given choice, rather than a different choice, certain.

Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture?"

Happiness is love's outcome, never its motive. Where someone is loved he is an end in himself and certainly not a means toward something else. It is therefore of love's essence, wherever it is found, that the loved one seem precious, beautiful, and worthy of love.