Motive

Famous quotes containing the word motive:

    We have not the motive to prepare ourselves for a “life-work” of teaching, of social work—we know that we would lay it down with hallelujah in the height of our success, to make a home for the right man. And all the time in the background of our consciousness rings the warning that perhaps the right man will never come. A great love is given to very few. Perhaps this make-shift time filler of a job is our life work after all.
    Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)

    Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    And I envy the intransigence of my own
    Countrymen who shoot to kill and never
    See the victim’s face become their own
    Or find his motive sabotage their motives.
    Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)