“The motives that explained human murder bunched, historically, into three groups: material gain; personal grudge and sociopathy.”

—  Adam Roberts, book Jack Glass: The Story of a Murderer

Part 2, Chapter 4, “The Mystery of the Champagne Supernovae” (p. 124).
Jack Glass (2012)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The motives that explained human murder bunched, historically, into three groups: material gain; personal grudge and so…" by Adam Roberts?
Adam Roberts photo
Adam Roberts44
British writer known for speculative fiction and parody nov… 1965

Related quotes

“Apollonius … explained his motive in practicing wisdom, declaring that the sole use he had made of it was to gain knowledge of the gods and an understanding of human affairs, for that the difficulty of knowing another man exceeded that of knowing oneself.”

Philostratus book Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Book 4, § 44.
Life of Apollonius of Tyana

Maxime Bernier photo

“Every public declaration is tested with polls and focus groups. The result is a bunch of platitudes that don’t offend anybody, but also don’t mean anything and don’t motivate anyone.”

Maxime Bernier (1963) Canadian politician

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Is this a personal grudge or are you just psychotic?”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

A Spy in Europa (p. 105)
Short fiction, Galactic North (2006)

Agatha Christie photo

“Now there is no murder without a motive.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Baba Hari Dass photo

“The preceding verse explained that together the three factors: 1) the knowledge (jnanam), 2) the known (jneyam), and 3) the knower (parijnata) motivate action. It was also stated that the organ (karanam), the action (karma), and the agent (karta) execute the action. In this verse the threefold distinction of knowledge, action, and the actor is explain according to the three gunas of Samkhya philosophy.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Ch. XIII-XVIII, 2015

“When a unit group is destroyed, a real individual is ‘killed’ above and beyond whatever human losses are incurred. The destruction of a feature group, in contrast, whatever the cultural loss, is not any kind of killing beyond the mass murder of human individuals.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"Kinds of Killing" https://web.archive.org/web/20121111032625/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/article/1008/kinds-of-killing (2011) (original emphasis)

Ralph George Hawtrey photo

“Economic theory, in every branch, deals with practical affairs. Its subject is human welfare, and it is never entirely dissociated from the practical question of how human welfare is to be promoted. But it is a special characteristic of the art of central banking that it deals specifically with the task of an authority directly entrusted with the promotion of human welfare. Human welfare, human motives, human behaviour supply material so baffling and elusive that many people are sceptical of the possibility of building a scientific edifice on so shifting a foundation. But however complex the material, and however imperfect the data, there is always an advantage to be gained from systematic thought.”

Ralph George Hawtrey (1879–1975) British economist

Preface
The Art of Central Banking (1932)

“Of historic method, indeed, nothing wiser has ever been said than a word which will be found in Gibbon's youthful Essay on the Study of Literature. Facts, the young sage instructs us, are of three kinds: those which prove nothing beyond themselves, those which serve to illustrate a character or explain a motive, and those which dominate the system and move its springs.”

G. M. Young (1882–1959) English historian

Portrait of an Age (1936)

Cassandra Clare photo

“Vampires bore a grudge longer than any technically living creatures, and whenever they were in a bad temper, they expressed themselves through murder.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

Related topics