Quotes about motivation
page 12

Madhu Kishwar photo
Petina Gappah photo

“I think I am a better writer for being a lawyer. My mind is pretty chaotic because I am interested in so much, but it has been disciplined through my legal studies. I want to believe I am more measured in my responses to events, and that I am more analytical of my own motivations and self-justification. I am strongly opinionated but I have learned the gift of dispassion…”

Petina Gappah (1971) Zimbabwean writer, journalist and business lawyer

On how being a lawyer shaped her writing in “Exclusive interview: Petina Gappah speaks about the highs and lows of her writing career, and reveals details of her next book” https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2017/09/04/exclusive-interview-petina-gappah-speaks-about-the-highs-and-lows-of-her-writing-career-and-reveals-details-of-her-next-book/ in the Johannesburg Review of Books (2017 Sep 4)

Newton Lee photo
Newton Lee photo
William Faulkner photo
Beto O'Rourke photo

“Everyone should deserve that next chance to improve their lives, to contribute to their communities, to do better, and if my own personal experience serves as some form of motivation… then there will be some good that has come out of it.”

Beto O'Rourke (1972) American politician

[Beto O'Rourke, 2017, One-on-One with Evan Smith of Texas Tribune #TribFest17, https://www.facebook.com/betoorourke/videos/1424903200892719/, video, Austin, Texas, Facebook] When asked about his arrests in an interview with the Texas Tribune
2017

Koenraad Elst photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Koenraad Elst photo
Koenraad Elst photo
John Adams photo
Lauretta Bender photo
Jack Vance photo

“May I inquire as to your motives?”

“Why do you trouble to ask? You would believe nothing told you.”
Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Face (1979), Chapter 13 (p. 166)

Jack Vance photo

“Revenge is not an ignoble motive, when it works to a productive end.”

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Star King (1964), Chapter 2 (p. 28)

Carl Sagan photo

“We are motivated by what makes our hearts feel lighter, no matter what is happening.”

Jakub Tencl (1978) Czech clinical hypnotherapist and writer

Source: The mystery of life : you are the light, and that's indestructible truth, Tencl, Jakub,, 9781512399882, [United Kingdom? https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/914353319,, 914353319]

Peter Kropotkin photo
Frantz Fanon photo
Thomas Sowell photo

“It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Random Thoughts https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2004/12/06/random-thoughts-n996213, Townhall, December 2004.
2000s

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“For vice has this defect; it cannot be truly intelligent. Its very motives are its weakness.”

Lost Legacy (p. 339)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

William Dalrymple photo
Edmund Burke photo

“None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don’t know we can’t do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another. For this good and valid reason, we’re told not to judge.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: 2000s, The Wisdom of Tenderness: What happens when God's firece mercy transforms our lives (2002), p. 69

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar photo
Vasyl Slipak photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Harry G. Frankfurt photo

“It is frequently insufficient to identify the motives that guide our conduct, or that shape our attitudes and our thinking, just by observing vaguely that there are various things we want.”

Harry G. Frankfurt (1929) Philosopher

That often leaves out too much. In numerous contexts, it is both more precise and more fully explanatory to say that there is something we care about.
The Reasons of Love (2004)

Mary Parker Follett photo

“THE subject I have been given for these lectures is The Psychological Foundations of Business Administration, but as it is obvious that we cannot in four papers consider all the contributions which contemporary psychology is making to business administration — to the methods of hiring, promoting and discharging, to the consideration of incentives, the relation of output to motive, to group organization, etc.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

I have chosen certain subjects which seem to me to go to the heart of personnel relations in industry. I wish to consider in this paper the most fruitful way of dealing with conflict. At the outset I should like to ask you to agree for the moment to think of conflict as neither good nor bad; to consider it without ethical prejudgment; to think of it not as warfare, but as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions, of interests. For that is what conflict means — difference. We shall not consider merely the differences between employer and employee, but those between managers, between the directors at the Board meetings, or wherever difference appears.
Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. 1. Lead paragraph

Indra Nooyi photo

“Nui is a different kind of CEO. He says her approach boils down to balancing the profit motive by making healthier snacks (in speech to the food industry, she pushed the group to tackle obesity), striving for a net zero impact on the environment and taking care of your workforce. She was one of the first executives to realize that the health and green movements were just not fads and she demanded true innovation.”

Indra Nooyi (1955) Indian-born, naturalized American, business executive

Quoted in[. Lussier, Robert N, Achua, Christopher F., Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development: Theory, Application, & Skill Development, http://books.google.com/books?id=7ctnVNMtBQgC&pg=PA151, 1 February 2009, Cengage Learning, 978-0-324-59655-7, 151–]

James K. Morrow photo

“You want a motive, William? I’ve got a motive. Vengeance may not be a pretty word, but it’s what’s expected of us.”

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

“Right!” said Sverre. “We owe it to all those millions of dead people to make more millions of dead people. Be careful how you rewrite strategic doctrine, General, or you’ll come out of this war without a single medal.”
Source: This Is the Way the World Ends (1986), Chapter 7, “In Which Our Hero Makes a Strategic Decision and Acquires a Reason Not to Curse God and Die” (p. 80)

Nicolae Ceaușescu photo

“Gheorghiu-Dej put more people in prison, but he had a motive. Ceausescu had no motive to do what he did. Things were worse under the last ten years of Ceausescu. It was terrible what he did.”

Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989) General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party

Serban Ghica, as quoted in John Sweeney, The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu (Hutchinson, 1991), p. 75
About Ceaușescu

Guy Debord photo
Joseph Campbell photo
John Stuart Mill photo

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

John Stuart Mill photo
Robert Greene photo
Robert Greene photo
Erica Jong photo

“The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not "taking" and the woman is not "giving."”

No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one.
Fear of Flying (1973)

John Stuart Mill photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Michel Henry photo

“The culture is the whole of the enterprises and of the practices in which the abundance of life expresses itself, they all have as motivation the 'load', the 'over' which disposes inwardly the living subjectivity as a force ready to give unstintingly itself and constraint, under the load, to do it.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, La Barbarie, éd. Grasset, 1987, p. 172
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Barbarism (1987)
Original: (fr) La culture est l'ensemble des entreprises et des pratiques dans lesquelles s'exprime la surabondance de la vie, toutes elles ont pour motivation la « charge », le « trop » qui dispose intérieurement la subjectivité vivante comme une force prête à se prodiguer et contrainte, sous la charge, de le faire.

Marianne Williamson photo
Marianne Williamson photo

“There comes a time, not too long into the journey to God, when the realization that the world could work beautifully if we would give it the chance, begins to excite us. It becomes our new motivation.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" (1992), Ch. 7 : Work, §9 : Sales to Service

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Tedros Adhanom photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being Who sees Himself our motives, Who will judge us from His own knowledge of them.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Writings (1904), Vol. XI, p. 44, to Abigail Adams on July 22, 1804.
1800s

Shaun Chamberlin photo
Ruhollah Khomeini photo

“[If] you have divine motives, material benefits will follow suit but they are no longer material; they have become divine.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Theology and Mysticism

Neville Chamberlain photo

“I believe the persecution arose out of two motives: a desire to rob the Jews of their money and a jealously of their superior cleverness. No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to a sister on the persecution of Jews in Germany (30 July 1939), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (HarperCollins, 1989), p. 81
Prime Minister

Petina Gappah photo

“I think it’s become clear to people what my motivation is. I am not simply anti-government, and I’m not in opposition to any one person; I want to write about all the things that I think are making us into an unkind society…”

Petina Gappah (1971) Zimbabwean writer, journalist and business lawyer

On her motivations as a writer in “Petina Gappah: ‘I want to write about what makes us into an unkind society’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/13/petina-gappah-zimbabwe-writer-interview in The Guardian (2016 Nov 13)

Walter Reuther photo

“You cannot save democracy in a vacuum of idealism. You have got to be motivated by idealism, but you have got to also be fighting the hard problem of practical politics.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Statement to the Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections, Washington, D.C., October 9, 1956, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 170
1950s, Statement to the Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections (1956)

Simon Sinek photo

“Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.”

Simon Sinek (1973) British/American author and motivational speaker

Source: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Jerry Seinfeld photo

“The real motivation of bein' a comedian is if you really love the sound of a laugh. And if you love that, you will never want to stop.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012 — Present), Season 3 (2014)

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo
Ryan Holiday photo
Leopold II of Belgium photo

“The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive.”

Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

African Spir photo
Jason Tanamor photo

“I don’t need to be motivated to write; it’s always there waiting to get out. Published or not.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Write Now Interview (2020)

Lily Tomlin photo

“Some journalists are just motivated by their own sense of what they want to say or what they feel comfortable saying or writing about. In '77, I was on the cover of Time.”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

The same week I had a big story in Newsweek. In one of the magazines it says I live alone, and the other magazine said I live with Jane Wagner. Unless you were so really adamantly out, and had made some declaration at some press conference, people back then didn't write about your relationship.
Metro Weekly interview (2006)

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“Governments are not at liberty to act solely from motives of generous sympathy for the sufferings of an oppressed people, they are bound by the severer rules of general principles, to respect rights which are inherent in other nations.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Viscount Granville on the Portuguese Civil War (10 August 1831), quoted in Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston (1970), p. 166
1830s

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)
Albert Einstein photo
Neal Stephenson photo

“People who claim they are motivated by the Purpose end up behaving differently—and generally better—than people who serve other masters.”
“So it is like believing in God.”

“Maybe yes. But without the theology, the scripture, the pigheaded certainty.”
Epilogue (p. 860)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

Prevale photo

“You are the main motive that fuels beat of my heart.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

From the Quotes http://www.prevale.net/quotes.html page of the official website of Prevale
Original: (it) ​Sei il motivo principale che alimenta il battito del mio cuore.
Source: prevale.net

Isaac Asimov photo

“At least try to see my motives. Granted that I was foolish—criminally foolish—can’t you understand? Can’t you try not to hate me?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

She said softly, “I have tried not to love you and, as you see, I have failed.”
Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Stars, Like Dust (1951), Chapter 19 “Defeat!” (p. 163)

Isaac Asimov photo

“It is all too easy to forget that there are emotional motivations in history, as well as economic ones.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Shaping of England (1969), p. 15
General sources

Prevale photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
Emma Goldman photo
Hugh Gaitskell photo

“So long as production is left to the uncontrolled decisions of private individuals, conducted, guided and inspired by the motive of profit, so long will Poverty, Insecurity and Injustice continue.”

Hugh Gaitskell (1906–1963) British politician

'Why I Am a Socialist', South Leeds Worker (December 1937), quoted in Philip Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (1979), p. 68

Charles Duke photo

“I like to participate in these kinds of things, so hopefully, we can change one life to motivate a kid to stimulate them to study in science and engineering.”

Charles Duke (1935) American engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut

Apollo Astronaut Shares Recollections 45 Years After Moon Landing (Exclusive Interview) https://www.space.com/37115-charlie-duke-apollo-16-exclusive-interview.html (June 7, 2017)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Glacier Kwong photo

“The motivation for me as an activist is the belief that no one is subordinate to another. The government is merely an agent of the people. We lend authority to it, and when it performs badly, we reserve the right to take it back.”

Glacier Kwong (1996) Hong Kong human rights activist

Hong Kong’s angry young millennials: an interview with Joshua Wong https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/hong-kong-angry-young-millennials-interview-with-joshua-wong/ (1 November 2015)

Sarojini Naidu photo

“We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Best Inspirational quotes by Sarojini Naidu, Happy Wishes https://happywishes20.com/quotes/best-inspirational-quotes-by-sarojini-naidu/,

Dave Bautista photo
Reza Goodary photo

“I still have the motivation to practice and fight.”

Reza Goodary (1988) Mixed martial artist

Source: I do not remember much, I just know I did not even think that after 25 years from that day, I still have the motivation to practice and fight. https://www.iribnews.ir/00DSMD IRIB News, (August 31, 2021)

Jesmyn Ward photo

“Place is important to my writing; I believe that if a reader gets a clear picture of the place where a character is from, then they can understand what motivates the character, what limits him or her…”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On using the setting to frame her novels in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘So much of life is pain and sorrow and wilful ignorance’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/12/jesmyn-ward-sing-unburied-sing-interview-meet-author in The Guardian (2017 Nov 12)

Liu Wen (model) photo

“My responsibility as a supermodel is to put fame aside and use my actions to encourage those who might need support, so that others also feel motivated on their own journeys.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Liu Wen (model) photo

“Career has given me a lot of happiness and I’ve fallen in love with it. Of course, there is joy in fame, but there are plenty of difficult periods to endure as well. It’s not unusual to feel down or stressed, but I use those as motivators to remain steadfast and look ahead.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen opens up about fame, responsibility and finding meaning in her career" in Vogue https://vogue.sg/liu-wen-cover-vogue-singapore-leslie-zhang/ (1 March 2021)

Steve Jobs photo

“By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Source: Republished email to Gawker's Ryan Tate, May 2010 https://web.archive.org/web/20100919141354/http://gawker.com/5539717/