Pure motives do not insure perfect results.
if you want to create art, you'd best have a deep belief in yourself and no ulterior motives.
We should often blush at our noblest deeds if the world were to see all their underlying motives.
It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances.
We can never understand other people's motives, nor their furniture.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
You can question somebody's views and their judgment without questioning their motives or patriotism.
I'm realising my dream of owning a top football club. Some will doubt my motives, others will think I'm crazy.
If your motives aren't clean, money itself becomes evil. But When we don't have money enough evil, the world tells us we're losers. So what determines our place in society is not how much kindness is in our hearts but how much evil is in our wallet.
Now that Stevenson is dead I can think of but one English- speaking author who is really keeping his self-respect and sticking forperfection. Of course I refer to that mighty master of language and keen student of human actions and motives, Henry James.
There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.
One must know ones enemy as he is, not as one, for whatever motives, wishes him to be.
My means are sane, my motives and my object mad.
Beware of anyone who calls you bad names merely for asking honest questions. Beware of anyone who insists on reframing your sincere curiosity as a character defect. Beware of anyone who questions your motives while ignoring your facts. When someone calls you bad names merely for asking questions, it suggests they know the answer but are terrified to admit it.
A common fallacy: to imagine a measure will be easy because we have private motives for desiring it.
Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life
I realized that searching was my symbol, the emblem of those who go out at night with nothing in mind, the motives of a destroyer of compasses.
The pure in heart are slow to credit calumnies, because they hardly comprehend what motives can be inducements to the alleged crimes.
Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict which was not unworthy of a statesman or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.
Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.