Search results for motive

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Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Therapy

America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose. – Herbert Hoover
By six qualities may a fool be known: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without motive; inquiry, without an object; trust in a stranger; and incapacity to discriminate between friend and foe. – Arabic Proverb
Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act. – Claude A. Helvetius
Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it. – Lois McMaster Bujold
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. – William James
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger and as, in the latter state, even the individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. – Alexander Hamilton
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. – Alexander Hamilton
On action alone be thy interest, Never on its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be thy motive, Nor be thy attachment to inaction. – Bhagavad Gita
On action alone be thy interest, Never on its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be thy motive, Nor be thy attachment to inaction. – Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community. – Albert Einstein
Quotation ... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium. – Henry W. Fowler
Quotation ... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium. – Henry W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926)
Though a good motive cannot sanction a bad action, a bad motive will always vitiate a good action. In common and trivial matters we may act without motives, but in momentous ones the most careful deliberation is wisdom. – W. M. L. Jay
To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive. – James Boswell
To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. ... For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination. – Immanuel Kant, FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE METAPHYSICS OF ETHICS

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