Apart from selfish reasons, such as fear of punishments, fear of blame, of dishonour, etc, there remains only two motives that can stop (or prevent, "empâecher", Fr. ) men from acting badly; the natural sense of commiseration (or "sympathy", - "commisération", Fr. ) for one's fellow men - compassion, and the influence of education, by association of ideas ("par l'association d'idées", Fr. ) - habit.
I'm sorry you leftists, you're not the only people whose motives are pure.
Discernment is the son of good judgment and the father of self-control. When mixed with an already clear conscience, the ability to read the true motives of a critic keeps one's conscience both clear and at ease.
Gods tend to be selfish. Even when they're helpful, they always have their own motives. That's why you have to be careful about trusting them.
Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life
Man sees your actions, but God your motives.
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
Malice will always find bad motives for good actions. - Shall we therefore never do good?
Never question another man's motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.
The motives that lead us to do anything might be arranged like the thirty-two winds and might be given names on the same pattern: for instance, "bread-bread-fame" or "fame-fame-bread.
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God.
Education-whether its object be children or adults, individuals or an entire people-consists in creating motives.
Of all the joyous motives of school life, the love of knowledge is the only abiding one; the only one which determines the scale, so to speak, upon which the person will hereafter live.
Men sometimes have strange motives for the things they do.
So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. In giving them freedom, we free ourselves.
As an actor, your motives and your own crazy psyche is really all you're responsible for in the movie.
How many times do we lose an occasion for soul work by leaping ahead to final solutions without pausing to savor the undertones? We are a radically bottom-line society, eager to act and to end tension, and thus we lose opportunities to know ourselves for our motives and our secrets.
We can be civil to each other, and we can try to express ourselves acknowledging that we're all patriots, we're all Americans, and not assume the absolute worst in people's motives.
We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.