Quotes about motivation
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“That God is quoted verbatim, that God is said to be speaking (when, in fact, he is being spoken for) points to either the remarkable arrogance of the biblical contributors or their unshakeable conviction that their access to the deity was total.
The fateful, and perhaps even unwitting, manipulation performed by the Hebrew Bible is to have convinced its readers that what stands in front of them is not a hodgepodge of texts worked over by countless men position across time and motivated by mundane political and theological interests. Instead, it presents itself as a self-evident treasury of the actual words, though, actions, political opinions, and future aspirations of Yahweh. From early on, apparently, interpreters wholly swallowed this argument.”

Jacques Berlinerblau (1966) Associate Professor, Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service,…

Source: The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously (2005), p. 65

Men, God, Fate, Quotes

“Adam Smith’s image of competition in the marketplace was intended as an adjunct to his detailed description of human motivation in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which the pursuit of profit is tempered at every juncture by sympathy and benevolence, and by the posture of the “impartial spectator” which is forced on us by our moral nature.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 108.

Nature

“Since it's not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the benefits of people trying to get more for themselves. There's probably widespread agreement that it's a wonderful thing that most of us own cars. Is there anyone who believes that the reason we have cars is because Detroit assembly line workers care about us? It's also wonderful that Texas cattle ranchers make the sacrifices of time and effort caring for steer so that New Yorkers can have beef on their supermarket shelves. It is also wonderful that Idaho potato growers arise early to do back-breaking work in the hot sun to ensure that New Yorkers also have potatoes on their supermarket shelves. Again, is there anyone who believes that ranchers and potato growers, who make these sacrifices, do so because they care about New Yorkers? They might hate New Yorkers. New Yorkers have beef and potatoes because Texas cattle ranchers and Idaho potato growers care about themselves and they want more for themselves. How much steak and potatoes would New Yorkers have if it all depended on human love and kindness? I would feel sorry for New Yorkers. Thinking this way bothers some people because they are more concerned with the motives behind a set of actions rather than the results. This is what Adam Smith, the father of economics, meant in The Wealth of Nations when he said, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interests."”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

Love, Hate, People, Cars

“Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups…So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

"How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" (1978)

People, Reality, Universe

“I’m not blaming religion for all or even most human barbarism. Of course faith in God generates compassion and altruism as well. Religious belief probably motivated some rescue workers who tried so heroically to save people from the wreckage. Religious belief offers solace and strength to people in the awful aftermath of the attack. But while they gather together to pray and seek comfort, protection, or approval from God, so do the terrorists. Whatever lessons we take from this dreadful attack, we should never forget that it was, after all, a faith based initiative.”

Wendy Kaminer (1949) American lawyer

"Our Very Own Taliban" (17 September 2001)

God, People, Faith, Religion

“Trying to get rid of the symptoms (terrorists) without paying attention to the root cause (terrorist motives) does not eradicate the disease but may instead exacerbate it.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

Disease

“Any attempt to understand the motivation of these occurrences is blocked by our own anthropomorphism. Where there are no men, there cannot be motives accessible to men.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 9: "The Liquid Oxygen", p. 134

Men, Understanding

“Some credible scholars say that making mass murderers famous motivates other mass murderers. (One might even argue that this article is part of the problem). Elliot Rodger sent his lengthy diatribe to the media before he went on his killing spree -- correctly predicting that his actions would propel his ideas (such as they were) into the marketplace of ideas on a digital billboard larger than he could ever have enjoyed had he not amplified them with his psychotic rampage. Accordingly, should we not silence him? Wipe his words from the Internet forever? Let him be forgotten?”

Marc Randazza (1969) American writer

Idea, Problem, Silence, Parting

“Because Impudence is a Vice, it does not follow that Modesty is a Virtue; it is built upon Shame, a Passion in our Nature, and may be either Good or Bad according to the Actions perform'd from that Motive.”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Remark C, p. 65
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

Nature, Passion

“The Bill will legitimise the 2000 coup and will weaken the law and order agencies. All the good work of rebuilding Fiji to what it is today will be undone. The freeing of anyone (even if their crimes are politically-motivated) will show to the world that we are a nation that condones law breakers. It also means that we support terrorists as the Police Commissioner has commented.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Excerpts from an address to Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, 28 July 2005

World, Law, Support

“The purpose of formulating [a] conflict as a game is not that of resolving the conflict by 'solving the game.' It is that of displaying the structure of the conflict and thereby exposing features of it that may be concealed by rhetoric. In particular, appreciation of the peculiar structure of some of the so-called mixed—motive conflicts represented nonzero-sum games may change the conflicting parties' perception of their situation.”

Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American mathematical psychologist

Anatol Rapoport, Conflict in man-made environment. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974; As cited in M.J. Apter, ‎J.H. Kerr, ‎S. Murgatroyd (1993) Advances in Reversal Theory. p. 63-64
1970s and later

Game, Change

“Give the youth a proper environment. Motivate them. Extend them the support they need. Each one of them has infinite source of energy. They will deliver.”

Dhirubhai Ambani (1932–2002) Indian business tycoon

From interview with Chitralekha

Youth, Support

“I like my players to be married and in debt. That's the way you motivate them.”

Ernie Banks (1931–2015) American baseball player and coach

The New York Times (April 11, 1976).

Way

“A threshold competency is a person's generic knowledge, motive, trait, self image, social role, or skill which is essential to performing a job, but is not causally related to superior job performance.”

Richard Boyatzis (1946) American business theorist

Source: Competent manager (1982), p. 23.

Knowledge, Personality

“If you had no higher motive than the approval of your fellow mortal, it would do you little good.”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXXII : Comparisons: Information Rejected; Helen to Ralph

“Did all these concerns in which the bourgeois was engaged really need external hallowing? They contained their own built-in standards, and the bourgeois was unwilling to recognize any other. If religion was to signify anything in his life, it would have to connect with that life itself, exalt the motives which determined it, not only tolerate them or approve them from a distance, but penetrate them and model itself on the very special morality which governed it.”

Bernard Groethuysen (1880–1946) French literary historian, translator and writer

Source: The Bourgeois: Catholicism vs. Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century France (1927), p. 153

Life, Religion

“The need for a fundamentally different approach to the study of physical processes at the molecular level motivated the development of relevant statistical methods, which turned out to be applicable not only to the study of molecular processes (statistical mechanics), but to a host of other areas such as the actuarial profession, design of large telephone exchanges, and the like. In statistical methods, specific manifestations of microscopic entities (molecules, individual telephone sites, etc.) are replaced with their statistical averages, which are connected with appropriate macroscopic variables. The role played in Newtonian mechanics by the calculus, which involves no uncertainty, is replaced in statistical mechanics by probability theory, a theory whose very purpose is to capture uncertainty of a certain type.”

George Klir (1932–2016) American computer scientist

Source: Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic (1995), p. 1-2.

Study

“It proved to be essential to clear the site for the new building. This idea was a forerunner of futurism which exposed the relentless nature of its motivating power. Revolutions had started undercover, everything grew more complicated. Painting economical in its creative output was still very complicated and uneconomical in its expression. cubism and futurism seized upon the purity of form treatment and colour and built a complicated and extensive system with them combining them without any regard for harmony. The rebuilding of life cast aside the old concept of nations classes patriotism and imperialism which had been completely discredited.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

1915 - 1925, Suprematism' in World Reconstruction (1920)

Life, Idea, Nature, Future

“Gird up your loins for the task that now lies ahead. I had asked you for men, money and materials. I have got them in generous measure. Now I demand more of you. Men, money and materials cannot by themselves bring victory or freedom. We must have the motive-power that will inspire us to brave deeds and heroic exploits.”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

Speech in Burma (July 1944) as quoted in The Great Speeches of Modern India (2011) https://books.google.com/books?id=z7dCH_IYbt8C&pg=PT137&lpg=PT137&dq=%22Gird+up+your+loins+for+the+task+that+now+lies+ahead.+I+had+asked+you+for+men,+money+and+materials%22&source=bl&ots=KiUxFbJQjT&sig=v7j_-1MYNUSCQFLxt8ElNpDicjc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tjIVVcyEFoLfoAS13oDQDA&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22Gird%20up%20your%20loins%20for%20the%20task%20that%20now%20lies%20ahead.%20I%20had%20asked%20you%20for%20men%2C%20money%20and%20materials%22&f=false by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Men, Money, Freedom, Victory

“It’s funny to read articles about Gordon Gekko as if he exists…. If you really listen to Gekko’s speech, half of it makes sense…. But it’s the excess, losing moderation, that destroys all…. There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as a human motivator, greed motivating evolution…. But there’s a huge disconnect between the classes. It is very demoralizing to work for someone who makes a billion dollars a year while you make just barely enough to make it.”

Oliver Stone (1946) American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Wall Street DVD Director’s Commentary (2000)

Sense, Reading

“Because we are so unfamiliar with the motivation of the people we are dealing with, we are more afraid of them than we need to be.”

John le Carré (1931) British novelist and spy

Radio interview (November 2008)

People

“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

“Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book The World as Will and Representation

The World as Will and Representation (1819; 1844; 1859)

Nature, Knowledge, Appearance

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

World, Freedom

“If a pitcher who wishes to retire a batter (motivation) throws a burning fastball (action) directly into the wind (environmental influence), then the observer should conclude that the pitcher has a particularly strong arm (ability). If a batter tries to hit that ball (motivation) but fails (action), then the observer should conclude that the batter lacked coordination (ability) or was blinded by the sun”

Daniel T. Gilbert (1957) American psychologist

environmental influence
Source: "Ordinary personology." 1998, p. 96; as cited in Malle (2011, 75)

Strong, Sun

“Do you think that a monk is your sweeper who will keep sweeping your mind for you day after day? He may clean your mind once; after that it is up to you to keep it clean. If you don't have any motivation, what can a monk do? Can a holy man erase your past impressions, or do you think he will carry you to the Lord on his shoulders? He will show you the path, but you will have to walk it yourself. That is the only way to reach God.”

Swami Adbhutananda Disciple

Source: God Lived with Them, p.432

God, Way, Thinking, Past

“Let us never underestimate the motivational force that the belief in Scripture’s divine proximity has upon exegetes. They open the book having already invested their faith in the proposition that it is underwritten by God.”

Jacques Berlinerblau (1966) Associate Professor, Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service,…

Source: The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously (2005), p. 67

God, Books, Faith

“It seems evident from his unpublished piece that his reading of the Mill-Taylor letters gave Hayek a bit of a shock. He knew, of course, from the Autobiography that Mill had an elevated opinion of Mrs. Taylor. The letters seem to have convinced Hayek that she dominated him. Hayek would doubtless have seen this as a weakness, and he might well have lost some respect for Mill as a result. It may also have provided a convenient explanation for Hayek for why a great mind like Mill might nonetheless “desert” the liberal camp. (Hayek’s hope to lead others to the same conclusion might have helped motivate him to write the book on the correspondence between Mill and Taylor.) Given what has sometimes been said about the dominating personality of Hayek’s second wife, one wonders whether Hayek would later in his life have felt even more commonalities with Mill.”

Bruce Caldwell (economist) (1952) economic historian

"Hayek and Mill", History of Political Economy (2008)

Life, Books, Hope, Reading

“Even in respect to those crimes which seem perfectly beyond human foresight, such as murders committed in general at the close of quarrels, arising without a motive, and under other circumstances to all appearance the most fortuitous or accidental; nevertheless, experience proves that murders are committed annually, not only pretty nearly to the same extent, but even that the instruments employed are in the same proportions. Now, if this occurs in the case of crimes whose origin seems to be purely accidental, what shall we say of those admitted to be the result of reflection.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

Appearance

“At the night of the debate, when I was interrupted, the issue then was said to be that, what I've said, is that some way or another I'm blaming the victims. Which is preposterous. It's sort of like taking somebody who's been murdered or raped, and saying, well, let's find out who it was and what the motives were, which everybody does in crime, it's normal and natural, to say that he's blaming the rape victim, or the murder victim. It couldn't be further from the truth, and an individual like myself and the many many others who have taken this position, that we blame America, or Americans. I'm an American, you're all Americans, and to say that there's a blame placed on you for what that has happened, not these murderers who came in and killed us, is ridiculous. And the whole notion that our foreign policy has nothing to do with it, and Giuliani has never heard this, is unbelievable. It's sort of like saying, a country could be under attack for year after year after year, with sanctions, and hundreds of thousands of people dying, and, oh, they don't care, they haven't even thought about it.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Press conference with Michael Scheuer at the National Press Club, May 24, 2007 http://thenewliberty.com/?p=184 2000s, 2006-2009

People, Truth, Way, Nature

“Had Mr. Darwin written a work on the change of species, as determined by observation and experiment, without any other object but that of advancing natural science, he would have obtained a high place among philosophical naturalists. But after reading his work in which the name of the Creator is never distinctly mentioned, we can hardly believe that scientific truth was the only object the author had in view. Researches, conducted under the influence of other motives, are not likely to stand the test of a rigorous scrutiny; and some of Mr. Darwin's not unfriendly critics have produced ample evidence that the idol of speculation has been occasionally worshipped at the expense of truth.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

The facts and fancies of Mr. Darwin (1862)

Truth, Nature, Science, Change

“One of the major problems of our society is that so many people are too intelligent to accept religion, but not intelligent or strong-minded enough to look for acceptable alternatives; in the same way, many people are strong-minded enough not to want to be 'organization men', but incapable of seeing beyond an act of protest. These situations produce a sense of being 'between two stools', lacking real motive; a sense of mental strain is produced that may find its outlet in violence, or in organised anti-social behaviour.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Bicameral Critic (1985), p. 224, Crimes of Freedom -- and their cure (1964)

Men, People, Religion, Way

“My dad has hated me for as long as I can remember. That's a pretty sweeping statement, and I know how phony it sounds. It sounds petulant and really fantastic, the kind of weapon kids always use when the old man won't come across with the car for your heavy date at the drive-in with Peggy Sue or when he tells you that if you flunk world history the second time through he's going to beat the living hell out of you. In this day and age when everybody thinks psychology is God's gift to the poor old anally fixated human race and even the president of the United States pops a trank before dinner, it's really a good way to get rid of those Old Testament guilts that keep creeping up our throats like the aftertaste of a bad meal we overate. If you say your father hated you as a kid, you can go out and flash the neighborhood, commit rape, or burn down the Knights of Pythias bingo parlor and still cop a plea… But it also means that no one will believe you if it's true. You're the little boy who cried wolf. And for me it's true…I don't think Dad himself really knew it until then. Even if you could dig to the very bottom of his motives, he'd probably say - at the most - that he was hating me for my own good.”

Stephen King book Rage

Rage (1977)

God, Hate, Age, World

“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.”

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

Random Thoughts http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2007/09/03/random_thoughts?page=full&comments=true, Sep 03, 2007 2000s

Pain, People, Education, Question

“Without a deadline, the motivation to do a task is small to nonexistent.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

“As I see it, the sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.”

Larry Flynt (1942) American publisher

Larry Flynt: Don't Execute The Man Who Paralyzed Me (Guest Column), 2013-11-21, 2013-10-17, The Hollywood Reporter http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/larry-flynt-dont-execute-man-649158,

Death, People, Justice, Penalty

“It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

1980s

Fear, Freedom

“There is much that is lacking in the political education of American troops, for which army policy cannot be criticized in view of the similar apathy on the home front. Late in the struggle the army became aware of this weakness among our soldiers. The Information and Education Division was then organized to repair this gap in the psychological preparation for combat. Some progress in the face of considerable resistance has been made by this service, but at the time of writing the men still have only a dim comprehension of the meaning of the fascist political state and its menace to our liberal democratic government. The war is generally regarded as a struggle between national states for economic empires. The men are not fully convinced that our country was actually threatened, or, if so, only remotely, or because of the machinations of large financial interests. In such passive attitudes lie the seeds of disillusion, which could prove very dangerous in the postwar period. Certainly they stand in startling contrast with the strong political and national convictions of our Axis enemies, which can inspire their troops, when the occasion demands, with a fanatical and religious fervor. Fortunately, strong intellectual motivation has not proved to be of the first importance to good morale in combat. The danger of this lack seems to be less to the prospect of military success than to success in the peace and to stability in the postwar period.”

Roy R. Grinker, Sr. (1900–1993) American psychiatrist and neurologist

Source: Men Under Stress, 1945, p. 38-39 cited in: The Clare Spark Blog (2009) Strategic Regression in “the greatest generation” http://clarespark.com/2009/12/09/strategic-regression-in-the-greatest-generation/ December 9, 2009

Men, War, Lie, Education

“The new vision of man and politics was never taken by its founders to be splendid. Naked man, gripped by fear or industriously laboring to provide the wherewithal for survival, is not an apt subject for poetry. They self-consciously chose low but solid ground. Civil societies dedicated to the end of self-preservation cannot be expected to provide fertile soil for the heroic and inspired. They do not require or encourage the noble. What rules and sets the standards of respectability and emulation is not virtue or wisdom. The recognition of the humdrum and prosaic character of life was intended to play a central role in the success of real politics. And the understanding of human nature which makes this whole project feasible, if believed in, clearly forms a world in which the higher motives have no place. One who holds the “economic” view of man cannot consistently believe in the dignity of man or in the special status of art and science. The success of the enterprise depends precisely on this simplification of man. And if there is a solution to the human problems, there is no tragedy. There was no expectation that, after the bodily needs are taken care of, man would have a spiritual renaissance—and this for two reasons: (1) men will always be mortal, which means that there can be no end to the desire for immortality and to the quest for means to achieve it; and (2) the premise of the whole undertaking is that man’s natural primary concern is preservation and prosperity; the regimes founded on nature take man as he is naturally and will make him ever more natural. If his motives were to change, the machinery that makes modern government work would collapse.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician

“Commerce and Culture,” p. 284.
Giants and Dwarfs (1990)

Life, Wisdom, Men, World

“It is my belief that those who live here and really want to help some other country, can best accomplish that result by making themselves truly and wholly American. I mean by that, giving their first allegiance to this country and always directing their actions in a course which will be first of all for the best interests of this country. They cannot help other nations by bringing old world race prejudices and race hatreds into action here. In fact, they can best help other countries by scrupulously avoiding any such motives.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)
Context: It is my belief that those who live here and really want to help some other country, can best accomplish that result by making themselves truly and wholly American. I mean by that, giving their first allegiance to this country and always directing their actions in a course which will be first of all for the best interests of this country. They cannot help other nations by bringing old world race prejudices and race hatreds into action here. In fact, they can best help other countries by scrupulously avoiding any such motives. It can be taken for granted that we all wish to help Europe. We cannot secure that result by proposing or taking any action that would injure America. Nor can we secure it by proposing or taking any action that would seriously injure some European country.

World, Help, Country

“But are we seeing indications these years that we have become more selfish, that we have become inclined to first and foremost make demands, and make sure that we all get what we ourselves think we are entitled to? Are we becoming distrustful of each other, and beginning to ascribe less than pure motives to each other? If that is the case, we are not only in an economic crisis. Then it is our attitudes that are slipping. It is a crisis that is insidious because it creeps upon us and poisons our relationships with each other. It means that we are jeopardising something that may be irretrievable.”

Margrethe II of Denmark (1940) Queen of Denmark

New Year's Address 2010/2011 http://kongehuset.dk/english/Menu/news/her-majesty-the-queens-new-year-address-2010 (01 January 2011). Society

Thinking, Selfishness

“I believe that painting, in our meaning, is structures. Each application of paint to a surface is structure. This is, of course, self-evident, but a superstructure of meaning can occur. One can have various motives for doing it. And here that difficult motif comes in. I believe that a ruthless accumulation of structure reworkings leads to one meeting one's motif. One's life-motif, so to speak. That which one has and does not know that one has it. A sort of geology, as when, in a constant process, sedimentation and erosion makes the earth we live on like it is now, without any meaning in itself in a rational sense, but accepted as that upon which we live in this life..”

Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) Danish artist

Source: 1965 - 1995, Bravura', Per Kirkeby, (1982), chapter 'Klee and the Vikings', p. 83

Life, Sense, Painting

“We only have a superficial knowledge about the true rural India -- the power structure, how to operate in tehsils, what are their true concerns, etc. But we think we can significantly change purchasing power and how we live. That's what motivates us”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

Knowledge, Thinking, Change

“When evening comes, I return home and enter my study; on the threshold I take off my workday clothes, covered with mud and dirt, and put on the garments of court and palace. Fitted out appropriately, I step inside the venerable courts of the ancients, where, solicitously received by them, I nourish myself on that food that alone is mine and for which I was born; where I am unashamed to converse with them and to question them about the motives for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me. And for four hours at a time I feel no boredom, I forget all my troubles, I do not dread poverty, and I am not terrified by death. I absorb myself into them completely.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Letter to Francesco Vettori http://www2.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/flor-mach-lett-vettori.htm (10 December 1513), in James Atkinson (trans.), Prince Machiavelli (1976), p. 19

Death, Food, Feeling, Home

“Nearly fifty years ago… Douglas McGregor launched a debate over how to manage The Human Side of the Enterprise. By comparing what he called Theory X and Theory Y perspectives, he challenged the management profession to reexamine its assumptions about the motivations employees bring to their jobs. The question was: Could employees be trusted and empowered to do good work, or did they have to be closely directed, monitored, and controlled to act in the interests of the firm? While McGregor’s Theory Y sparked important innovations in human resource practices, it did not challenge fundamental assumptions underpinning the 20th Century organizational model. If, as is widely recognized, human capital and knowledge are the most important sources of value for the 21st Century organization, then fundamental assumptions about the relationship between work and organizations will also need to be challenged.”

Thomas A. Kochan (1947) American academic

Source: "Beyond McGregor’s Theory Y", 2002, p. 2: introduction

Question, Knowledge

“An imagined threat might be an extremely powerful motivation to action; and an aspiration, even if built on fantasy, is not nothing, provided it really moves people to action. … Even illusions can have effects. The realist must take powerful illusions seriously as factors in the world that have whatever motivational power they in fact have for the population in question, that is, as something to be understood. This is compatible with seeing through them, and refusing steadfastly to make them part of the cognitive apparatus one employs oneself to try to make sense of the world.”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 11.

People, World, Imagination, Question

“Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Writing for the court, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).

Life, Age, Sex

“In short, all suicides of the insane are either devoid of any motive or determined by purely imaginary motives. Now, many voluntary deaths fall into neither category; the majority have motives, and motives not unfounded in reality. Not every suicide can therefore be considered insane, without doing violence to language.”

Émile Durkheim book Suicide

Suicide (1897)

Death, Reality, Suicide

“We must not underrate our adversary; the U. S. soldier has technical capacity and is backed by weapons and resources of such magnitude that render him frightful. He lacks the essential ideological motivation which his bitterest enemies of today — the Vietnamese soldiers — have in the highest degree. We will only be able to overcome that army by undermining their morale — and this is accomplished by defeating it and causing it repeated sufferings.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Message to the Tricontinental (1967)

Suffering

“[On what she learned from working on The L Word] I think that I learned the most clearly was how connected we all are. And that (does air quotation marks) "gay issues" are also women's issues because homophobia is a form of misogyny…And I feel much more motivated to speak out when I see something that I don't like or that just smells wrong…I see how all women are connected. You know, and that we are all either repressed or we repress ourselves in certain ways, and that's truly codified within the culture. And that I'm not so far removed from that woman in the Congo who's terrified to go out into the woods to look for firewood.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

New York Times Talks Panel (20 April 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeZgJ3EJrbE.

Women, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“One of the things that motivated my old friend Andrew Breitbart was his righteous indignation at being called a racist. That's a running theme in his book, "Righteous Indignation."”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe (2018)

Books

“You have to help another person. But it’s not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you’re doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn’t enough. You have to…be in touch. He isn’t in touch. No one else, no thing even, has an existence of its own for him; he sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn’t make any difference if his end is good; means are all we’ve got.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Lathe of Heaven

Source: The Lathe of Heaven (1971), Chapter 10 (Orr)

God, People, World, Help

“I think its time to get motivated folks. I don't know what you're doing, but it's time to get really moving. We are rapidly running out of time. What do we do? Number one, you need to realize that God is in control. Don't get nervous, get busy, but don't get nervous. For he's the potter, we're the clay. Do what he says, simple. We should be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Be careful for nothing, full of care. Don't get nervous, just get busy. We should pray for those in authority. If you were praying for your senators, you would know their names, wouldn't you? We're God's children. It's our job to obey him. Preach the Gospel. We're suppose to be the salt of the earth. Salt does a lot of interesting things. Salt preserves; you should be a preserving force in your community. Salt irritates. If nobody is irritated with you, you aren't a good Christian.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

God, Children, Communication, Business

“Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 220.

Love, Faith, Selfishness

“I am so excited to let fans in on how important my relationship with my family is to me, I hope to motivate mothers and daughters to build lifetimes of memories together, and inspire kids around the world to live their dreams.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSN2234080420080422 (April 22, 2008)

World, Family, Dreams, Hope

“[Evolution Theory] is the motivating factor for guys like Hitler and Stalin and George Bush, by the way, who is a Satan worshiper, like we don't know that.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

3 April 2006
Truth Radio

Way, Guy

“These two characteristics make revenge the most suitable source for the formation of ressentiment. The nuances of language are precise. There is a progression of feeling which starts with revenge and runs via rancor, envy, and impulse to detract all the way to spite, coming close to ressentiment. Usually, revenge and envy still have specific objects. They do not arise without special reasons and are directed against definite objects, so that they do not outlast their motives. The desire for revenge disappears when vengeance has been taken, when the person against whom it was directed has been punished or has punished himself, or when one truly forgives him. In the same way, envy vanishes when the envied possession becomes ours. The impulse to detract, however, is not in the same sense tied to definite objects—it does not arise through specific causes with which it disappears. On the contrary, this affect seeks those objects, those aspects of men and things, from which it can draw gratification. It likes to disparage and to smash pedestals, to dwell on the negative aspects of excellent men and things, exulting in the fact that such faults are more perceptible through their contrast with the strongly positive qualities. Thus there is set a fixed pattern of experience which can accommodate the most diverse contents. This form or structure fashions each concrete experience of life and selects it from possible experiences. The impulse to detract, therefore, is no mere result of such an experience, and the experience will arise regardless of considerations whether its object could in any way, directly or indirectly, further or hamper the individual concerned. In “spite,” this impulse has become even more profound and deep-seated—it is, as it were, always ready to burst forth and to betray itself in an unbridled gesture, a way of smiling, etc. An analogous road leads from simple *Schadenfreude* to “malice.””

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

The latter, more detached than the former from definite objects, tries to bring about ever new opportunities for *Schadenfreude*.
Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912)

Life, Men, Smile, Way

“Undoubtedly Wittgenstein did greatly need human warmth and affection and he was enormously appreciative of any simple kindness. But a friendly relationship with him was very exacting. He could rebuke a friend with extreme harshness. He had a tendency to be suspicious of motives and character.”

Norman Malcolm (1911–1990) American philosopher

Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 1958

“Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 8 (p. 132; Vorkosigan to Cordelia; she quotes it back to him on p. 236)

Future, Victory

“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

John Jay Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 4 (7 November 1787) Full text from Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist/4. 1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 4 (1787)

War, People, Family, Justice

“Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. … It seems to me that at the very heart of the controversy over the existence of mind control is a bias toward believing in the power of people to resist the power of situational forces, a belief in individual will power and faith to overcome all evil adversity. It is Jesus modeling resistance against the temptations of Satan, and not the vulnerability of Adam and Eve to deception. More recently, examples abound that challenge this person-power misattribution.”

Benjamin Zablocki (1941) American sociologist

Benjamin Zablocki (2002); As cited in: Herbert W Simons, PH.D., ‎Jean Jones (2011) Persuasion and Contemporary Culture. p. 343

People, Faith, Behavior, Freedom

“I think the motives of the legislature in passing an Act of Parliament are to be taken to be proper motives.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 312.
Trial of Hunt and others (King v. Hunt) (1820)

Thinking

“The doves are pleased that [Robert McNamara] finally concedes that "our blundering efforts to do good" turned into a "dangerous mistake," as Anthony Lewis put the matter long after corporate America had determined that the game was not worth the candle. As the doves had by then come to recognize, although we had pursued aims that were "noble" and "motivated by the loftiest intentions," they were nevertheless "illusory" and it ended up as a "failed crusade" (Stanley Karnow). McNamara has now "paid his debt," Theodore Draper writes in the New York Review, finally recognizing that "The Vietnam War peculiarly demanded a hardheaded assessment of what it was worth in the national interest of the United States," just as the invasion of Afghanistan "peculiarly demanded" such an assessment in the Kremlin. Draper is outraged by the "vitriolic and protracted campaign" against McNamara by the New York Times. "The case against McNamara largely hinges on the premise that he did not express his doubts" about "whether American troops should continue to die" early on, but the Times did not either (though Draper did, he proudly reminds us). Could there be another question?”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Z Magazine, July 1995

War, Game, Question, Effort

“I had manufactured artificial goals as a means of motivating myself, using my longing for money, cars, and other material possessions to create a false sense of purpose. They had worked on me like spoonfuls of sugar- a jolt of energy that soon faded, leaving behind the pangs of a deeper hunger. I had cut myself off from the transcendent hope of religion, and now a vast and frightening expanse of uncertainty lay before me.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Pages 116-117
2000s, (2008)

Money, Hunger, Religion, Hope

“Repudiation of pleasur is a reason'd folly
of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate
or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life,
whereon all function whatsoever in man is based.”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Book IV, lines 459-462.
The Testament of Beauty (1929-1930)

Life, Pleasure, Joy

“Technic is the result of a need new needs demand new technics total control denial of the accident States of order organic intensity energy and motion made visible memories arrested in space, human needs and motives acceptance”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

Quote around 1948-'49; as cited in Abstract Expressionism (1990), David Anfam, p. 121
Pollock wrote this text on the back of a photo of himself taken in his own studio.
1940's

Memory

“Many schools are now introducing computers into the educational curriculum. Within 10 years it is predicted that computers will play a significant role in every classroom in North America. The question is, how will they be used? Many educators have been focusing on the use of computers for drill and programmed instruction—to provide individualized practice and instruction in the usual curriculum areas. There is another use for computers in education which some educators, myself included, find more exciting. These involve using the computer:
• to provide an environment in which learning can be intrinsically motivating and fun.
• to allow children to discover, explore and create knowledge.
• to help develop skills of thinking and problem solving.
• to make some of the most powerful ideas of the burgeoning computer culture accessible and tangible to children at an early age.
If you have ever watched a child playing good video games or if you play them yourself, then you know the powerful motivation that graphics displays can create. As I’ve watched children play these games, every bit of their attention focused on the screen, I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to harness this motivation and channel it toward intellectual growth and learning…”

Michael Friendly (1945) American psychologist

Michael Friendly. Advanced Logo: A Language for Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 1988. Preface

Children, Age, Education, School

“Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren't many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?There will be many who find "To the Wonder" elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/to-the-wonder-2013 of To the Wonder (April 6, 2013) NOTE: This was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed. Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Dreams, Hope, Soul, Understanding

“Rev. and Mrs. Moon boldly entered Moscow in April 1990 and had a one-on-one meeting in the Kremlin with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. This was another miracle to have occurred. Rev. Moon conveyed his support to Gorbachev of his policies of glasnost and perestroika. I was there to translate that extraordinary meeting. Rev. Moon persuaded Gorbachev to allow religious freedom, to allow God to enter the Soviet Union. In my opinion, this meeting was crucially important in the sight of God. It was, in a way, the beginning of a peaceful process of the demise of the Soviet empire. Rev. Moon indeed motivated Gorbachev in the direction of peaceful reform. The greatest miracle that occurred in this century was the liberation of the Soviet Union without nuclear war. The threat of nuclear war was the single greatest concern of Rev. Moon. He said, "Thank God, not a single nuclear weapon was used against mankind since 1945."”

Bo Hi Pak (1930–2019) South Korean member of the Unification Church

Clearly, it was God who dismantled the Evil Empire. Introduction to the Life and Work of the Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon http://www.unification.net/misc/bhp9606.html 1996-06-17.

God, War, Peace, Way

“In the records referring to the rise of Vijayanagara, the Marathas, and the Sikhs, the religious motive is brought into a sharper focus. These records leave us in no doubt that the defence of Hindu Dharma was uppermost in the minds of Madhava Vidyaranya, Samartha Ramdas, and Guru Tegh Bahadur. The purpose for which the sword was unsheathed by Harihar and Bukka, Shivaji and the Sikhs, becomes quite clear in many poems written in praise of these heroes by a number of Hindu poets. The purpose, we are told, was to save the cow, the Brahmin, the šikhã, the sûtra, the honour of Hindu women, and the sanctity of Hindu places of worship.”

Sita Ram Goel book The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India

The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

Women

“The story has spread that in testifying against Mr. Hiss I am working out some old grudge, or motives or revenge or hatred. I do not hate Mr. Hiss. We were close friends, but we are caught in a tragedy of history. Mr. Hiss represents the concealed enemy against which we are all fighting, and I am fighting. I have testified against him with remorse and pity, but in a moment of history in which this Nation now stands, so help me God, I could not do otherwise.”

Whittaker Chambers Witness

televised testimony of August 25, 1948
Source: Witness (1952), pp. 694-695

God, Hate, History, Revenge

“[Akbar is reported to have said:] “My dear child… with all of God’s creatures, I am at peace; why should I permit myself, under any consideration, to be the cause of molestation or aggression to any one? Besides, are not five parts in six of mankind either Hindus or aliens to the faith; and were I to be governed by motives of the kind suggested in your inquiry, what alternative can I have but to put them all to death? I have thought it therefore my wisest plan to let these men alone.””

Akbar (1542–1605) 3rd Mughal Emperor

Tarikh-i-Salim Shahi (Calcutta Edition), pp. 21-22. (Some scholars hold that this work is a fabrication and does not comprise the real Memoirs of Jahangir) quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.

Death, Men, God, Peace

“A manager sets objectives - A manager organizes - A manager motivates and communicates - A manager, by establishing yardsticks, measures”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

A manager develops people.
Source: 1930s- 1950s, The Practice of Management (1954), p. 344

People, Communication

“Whatever expenditure is sanctioned—even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish—the ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay…. The ministry is (so to speak) the breadwinner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory; just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters.”

Walter Bagehot book The English Constitution

No. V, The House of Commons, p. 137
The English Constitution (1867)

Money, Family, Daughters

“In common with other men, the business man is moved by ideals of serviceability and an aspiration to make the way of life easier for his fellows… Motives of this kind detract from business efficiency, and an undue yielding to them on the part of business men is to be deprecated as an infirmity. Still, throughout men's dealings with one another and with the interests of the community there runs a sense of equity, fair dealing, and workmanlike integrity.”

Thorstein Veblen book The Theory of Business Enterprise

Source: The Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904, p. 41-42. as cited in: Geoffrey Hodgson (2004). The Evolution of Institutional Economics. p. 202

Life, Men, Way, Communication

“Imagine an Internet geek running for office, perhaps none too seriously, on a platform saying: "If elected, I will insert 'The Internet is for Porn' into the congressional hearing record, which will be preserved as an official public document for all time."”

Jared Polis (1975) American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and US Representative

Whatever his motivations, Polis did just that. news.cnet.com, CNET News, 'Internet is for Porn' pops up during House SOPA debate, Declan McCullagh, December 16, 2011 http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57344507-281/internet-is-for-porn-pops-up-during-house-sopa-debate/, About

Imagination, Time

“This paper analyzes the relations between knowledge, control and organizational structure both in the market system as a whole and in private organizations. Limitations on the mental capacity of the human mind and the costs of producing and transferring knowledge means that knowledge relevant to all decisions can never be collected in the mind of a single individual or a small body of experts. This means that if the knowledge valuable to a particular decision is to be used in making that decision, there must be a system for partitioning out decision rights to individuals who already have the relevant knowledge and abilities or who can acquire or produce them at the lowest cost. Self interest on the part of individual decision-makers means a control system is required to motivate individuals with the decision rights and the relevant knowledge to use those decision rights appropriately. This control problem is solved in a capitalist economy by a system of alienable property rights.”

Michael Jensen (1939) American economist

Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling. "Specific and general knowledge and organizational structure." (1992).

Knowledge, Problem, Decision, Parting

“Here are six popular theses in the philosophical and psychological literature on motivation:1. Motivation is present in the animal kingdom but does not extend throughout it.
2. Motivated beings have a capacity to represent goals and means to goals.
3. A motivation-encompassing attitude may have either a goal or a means as its object.
4. Motivation varies in strength.
5. The stronger an agent’s motivation to A is, in comparison to the agent’s motivation for alternative courses of action, the more likely the agent is to A, other things being equal.
6. Whenever agents act intentionally, there is something they are effectively motivated to do.Divergent conceptions of motivation may be at work in philosophical thought about motivational matters. My concern in this book is a notion of motivation consistent with (among other things) these six claims. Readers who accept all six claims are likely to be more interested in the result than those who do not, but I conjecture that most readers do accept all of these claims, on some reading or other. Also, readers who reject one or more of these theses or who believe that no acceptable conception of motivation is consistent with all of them will be offered good reason to change their minds!”

Alfred Mele (1951) American philosopher

Introduction
Motivation and Agency (2003)

Books, Literature, Change, Reading

“So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken. My characters tell me so much and no more, with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, their history. Between my lack of biographical data about them and the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which is not only worthy of exploration but which it is compulsory to explore.”

Harold Pinter (1930–2008) playwright from England

13
Writing for the Theatre (1962)

History

“No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), Ch. 32, January 13, 1944.

Penalty, History, Time

“The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Federalist No. 10
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Feeling

“Scientific "facts" are taught at a very early age and in the very same manner in which religious "facts" were taught only a century ago. There is no attempt to waken the critical abilities of the pupil so that he may be able to see things in perspective. At the universities the situation is even worse, for indoctrination is here carried out in a much more systematic manner. Criticism is not entirely absent. Society, for example, and its institutions, are criticised most severely and often most unfairly… But science is excepted from the criticism. In society at large the judgment of the scientist is received with the same reverence as the judgement of bishops and cardinals was accepted not too long ago. The move towards "demythologization," for example, is largely motivated by the wish to avoid any clash between Christianity and scientific ideas. If such a clash occurs, then science is certainly right and Christianity wrong. Pursue this investigation further and you will see that science has now become as oppressive as the ideologies it had once to fight. Do not be misled by the fact that today hardly anyone gets killed for joining a scientific heresy. This has nothing to do with science. It has something to do with the general quality of our civilization. Heretics in science are still made to suffer from the most severe sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

How To Defend Society Against Science (1975)

Age, Idea, Suffering, Universe

“It is said we go about the world waging war to promote peace, and yet the price paid is rarely weighed against the failed efforts to make the world a better place. Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense. What right does anyone have to sacrifice the lives of others for some cause of questionable value? Even if well motivated it can’t justify using force on uninterested persons. It’s said that the 18 year old owes it to his country. Hogwash! It just as easily could be argued that a 50 year-old chickenhawk, who promotes war and places the danger on innocent young people, owes a heck of a lot more to the country than the 18 year-old being denied his liberty for a cause that has no justification.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Source: Conscription - The Terrible Price of War, November 21, 2003 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr112103.htm

Death, War, People, World

“The national Democratic Party and its southern affiliates labored mightily to re-subjugate the newly free blacks, eventually succeeding by implementing Jim Crow laws, motivating the birth of the Klan and then protecting it, establishing separate-but-equal schools and public facilities, and enacting codes of lawful segregation, all of which Democrats defended in a fight to the death until the 1960s. In U. S. history, from the ratification of the Constitution to the economic devastation wrought by Obama on contemporary black Americans, the men and women who run Democratic Party, from Jefferson and Jackson forward, have been the ferocious enemy of black Americans entering the mainstream of American life, to this day bending every tool of political power to keep them angry, unemployed, mired in poverty, and politically and economically dependent in a manner that approaches quite near to re-enslavement.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention https://archive.is/QBuxT (22 June 2015), by M. Scheuer. 2010s

Life, Death, Women, Men

“There may be a kindness that is neurotic, if it develops out of unconscious compulsions, and a cruelty that is normal, if it is freely and consciously determined upon. So far as sainthood is determined by unconscious and uncontrolled motives, it is neurotic; so far as sinning, as usually understood, is determined by conscious and rational choice, it is normal.”

Philip Rieff (1922–2006) American sociologist

The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966)

“Libertarians used to tell us that ‘the love of freedom is the strongest of political motives,’ but recent events have taught us the extravagance of this opinion. The ‘herd-instinct’ and the yearning for paternal authority are often as strong. Indeed the tendency of men to gang up under a leader and submit to his will is of all political traits the best attested by history. It has been so shockingly exemplified in modem times that only a somnambulist could ignore it in trying to build, or defend, a free society. His first concern should be to make sure that no one gang or group-neither the proletariat, nor the capitalists, nor the landowners, no the bankers, nor the army, nor the church, nor the government itself-shall have exclusive power.”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955), pp. 37-38

Love, Men, History, Freedom

“When you buy a song file what you are buying is not a stamped product, but permission. Permission to copy a track from a sanctioned vendor. But it is just as easy if not easier from people to copy from one another. Who needs a middle man unless they offer an added value and do it at a motivating price point?”

Richard Menta American journalist

Source Record Industry Digital Growth Doomed by Mechanical Rates http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/8002/mechanicals.htm - 10/05/2008 Quotes from the MP3 Newswire

People

“A very eminent writer has observed, that "the conversion of the Gentile world, whether we consider the difficulties attending it, the opposition made to it, the wonderful work wrought to accomplish it, or the happy effects and consequences of it, may be considered as a more illustrious evidence of God's power, than even our Saviour's miracles of casting out devils, healing the sick, and raising the dead." Indeed, a miracle said to have been wrought without any attending circumstances to justify such an exertion of divine power, could not easily be rendered credible; and our author's argument proves no more. If it were related, that about 1700 years ago, a man was raised from the dead, without its answering any other end than that of restoring him to life, Iconfess that no degree of evidence could induce me tobelieve it; but if the moral government of God appeared in that event, and there were circumstances attending it which could not be accounted for by any human means, the fact becomes credible. When two extraordinary events are thus connected, the proof of one established the truth of the other. Our author has reasoned upon the fact as standing alone, in which case it would not be easy to disprove some of his reasoning; but the fact should be considered in a moral view - as connected with the establishment of a pure religion, and it then becomes credible. In the proof of any circumstance, we must consider every principle which tends to establish it; whereas our author, by considering the case of a man said to have been raised from the dead, simpli in a physical point of view, without any reference to a moral end, endavours to show that it cannot be rendered credible; and, from such principles, we may admit his conclusions without affecting the credibility of Christianity. The general principle on which he establishes his argument, is not the great foundation upon which the evidence of Christianity rests. He says, "Notestimony can be sufficient to establish a miracle, unless it be of such a kind, that the falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endavours to prove." Now this reasoning, at furthest, can only be admitted in those cases where the fact has nothing but testimony to establish it. But the proofs of Christianity do not rest simply upon the testimony of its first promulgators, and that of those who were affterwards the instruments of communicating it; but they rest principally upon the acknowledged and very extraordinary affects which were produced by the preaching of a few unlearned, obscure persons, who taught "Christ crucified;" and it is upon these indisuptable matters of ffact which we reason; and when the effects are totally unaccountable upon any principle which we can collect from the operation of human means, we must either admit miracles, or admit an effect without an adequate cause. Also, when the proof of any position depends upon arguments drawn from various sources, all concutring to establish its turh, to select some one circumstance, and atrempt to show that that alone is not sufficient to render the fact credible, and thence infer that it is not ture, is a conclusion not to be admitted. But it is thus that our author has endavoured to destroy the credibiliry of Christianity, the evidences of which depend upon a great variety of circumstances and facts which are indisputably true, all cooperating to confirm its truth; but an examination of these falls not whithin the plan here proposed. He rests all his arguments upon the extraordinary nature of the fact, considered alone by itself; for a common fact, with the same evidence, would immediately be admitted. I have endavoured to show, that the extraordinary nature, as much as the mosst common events are necessary to fulfill the usual dispensations of Providence, and therefore the Deity was then direted by the same motive as in a more ordinary case, that of affording us such assitance as our moral condition renders necessary. In the establishment of a pur religion, the proof of its divine origin may require some very extraordinary circumstances which may never afterwards be requisite, and accordingly we find that they have not happened. Here is therefore a perfect concistencty in the operation of the Deity, in his moral government, and not a violation of the laws of nature: Secondly, the fact is immediately connected with others which are indisputably true, and which, without the supossition of the truth of that fact, would be, at least, equally miraculous. Thus I conceive the reasoning of our author to be totally inconclusive; and the argumentss which have been employed to prove the fallacy of his conclusions, appear at the same time, fully to justify our belief in, and prove the moral certainty of, our holy religion.”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 27; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA262," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 262-263

Life, God, Happiness, Truth

“Those with wholeness of understanding will be primarily motivated towards Watchfulness by their coming to see clearly that only perfection and nothing else is worthy of their desire and that there is no worse evil than the lack of and removal from perfection. For after this has become clear to them, as well as the fact that the means to this end are virtuous deeds and traits, they will certainly never permit themselves to diminish these means; nor will they ever fail to make use of their full potential. For it would already have become clear to them that if these means were reduced in number or not employed with complete effectiveness, with all of the energy that they called for, true perfection would not be attained through them, but would be lacked to the extent that sufficient exertion was lacking in relation to them.”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Chapter 4

Understanding, Evil, Perfection

“Arthur Rubinstein once said to me that he couldn't think when he played, that something else took over. I also don't think when I play - something happens through me, but I am motivated by what I have thought before.”

Arthur Rubinstein (1887–1982) Polish-American classical pianist

Leonard Shure — reported in Richard Dyer (April 21, 1980) "Shure: Looking Back on the first 70 Years", Boston Globe.
About

Thinking

“If we choose, we can use genetic engineering to alter the character of our offspring. …the motivation to do this will eventually become overwhelming.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution (1995)

“Make no mistake, the real power resides not where present authority is exercised but where it is expected that authority will in future be exercised. The magnetic attraction of power is exercised by the prospect long before the reality is achieved; and the trek towards the rising sun, which is already in progress in 1972, would swell to an exodus before long. What do you imagine is the reason why Roy Jenkins is prepared to resign the front bench and divide his party in the endeavour to give a Conservative Prime Minister a majority in the House of Commons? The motive is not ignoble or discreditable—I am not asserting that—but it is a motive which it behoves people in Britain well to understand. It is the ambition to exercise his talents on the stage of Europe and to participate in taking decisions not for Britain here at home but for Europe in Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg or wherever else the imperial pavilions may be pitched. He does not, I assure you, forsee his future triumphs and achievements where his predecessors have seen them in the past – at the despatch box in the House of Commons or in the Cabinet room at Downing St. These are not good enough: the vision splendid beckons elsewhere.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech at Millom, Cumberland (29 April 1972), from A Nation or No Nation? Six Years in British Politics (Elliot Right Way Books, 1977), p. 42. Jenkins had resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and as deputy leader of the Labour Party due to Labour's opposition to British entry into the EEC. Jenkins wrote to Powell to claim what he said was "totally untrue". Four years later Jenkins would leave front line British politics to become President of the European Commission.
1970s

People, Exercises, Home, Imagination

“Science Of Energetics. Although the mechanical hypothesis just mentioned may be useful and interesting as a means of anticipating laws, and connecting the science of thermodynamics with that of ordinary mechanics, still it is to be remembered that the science of thermodynamics is by no means dependent for its certainty on that or any other hypothesis, having been now reduced, to a system of principles, or general facts, expressing strictly the results of experiment as to the relations between heat and motive power. In this point of view the laws of thermodynamics may be regarded as particular cases of more general laws, applicable to all such states of matter as constitute Energy, or the capacity to perform work, which more general laws form the basis of the science of energetics, — a science comprehending, as special branches, the theories of motion, heat, light, electricity, and all other physical phenomena.”

William John Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872) civil engineer

Source: A Manual of the Steam Engine and Other Prime Movers (1859), p. 31

Law, Light, Science, Dependency

“It is hard to suggest a remedy for this situation, which is one no military man enjoys. One alternative would be to refuse to permit military officers to appear before Congress and leave the defense of military matters to the civilian secretaries. This is the solution followed in Great Britain and many European countries. I doubt that it will ever be accepted in the United States, where the COngress wants to hear the facts from military men who presumably are without political motivation. A second alternative would be to take the position that the advice of the Chiefs of Staff to their civilian superiors is privileged and not to be revealed under Congressional interrogation. Thus far the Executive authority has not seen fit to raise the storm such a stand would create.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: The Uncertain Trumpet (1960), p. 113

Men, Appearance, Country

“In order for something to Catch On, it has to be standardized. Unfortunately, there is motivation for different companies to make their own little changes in order to restrict users to their own products. The best example of how to avoid this: Philips patented its audio cartridge [i. e. the standard audio "cassette"] to the teeth, but then granted everyone free use of the patent provided they adhered to the exact standard. The result has been the system's spectacular success, and Philips, rather than dominating a small market, has a share of a far larger market, and hence makes more money. That's a virtue-rewarded kind of story.”

Ted Nelson (1937) American information technologist, philosopher, and sociologist; coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia"

Dream Machines
Computer Lib/Dream Machines (1974, rev. 1987)

Money, Change, Success

“Despite the vociferous claims of the Platonists and Neoplatonists, Plato was not a mathematician. To Plato and his followers mathematics was largely a means to an end… they viewed the technical aspects of mathematics as a mere device for sharpening one's wits, or at most a course of training peparatory to handling the larger issues of philosophy. This is reflected in the very name "mathematics,"… a course of studies or… a curriculum. …in the Dialogues… such topics as harmony, triangular numbers, figurate numbers… which we view today as more or less irrelevant, if not trivial, were taken up at length. …the guiding motive behind the… Pythagoreans and Platonists was… metaphysical …which for the nonprofessional have all the earmarks of the occult.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

...We also discover in the Pythagorean speculations more than a mere germ of... the scientific attitude.
The Bequest of the Greeks (1955)

Mathematics, Study, Training

“I believe the term ‘serial killer’ is highly misleading, in that it implicitly suggests to the general public that murder is the paramount object or motivating urge in the mind of the killer … They naturally attribute this motivation partly because they value human life above all else, and partly because, as their endless fascination with the subject suggests, they have a vague conception of murder as being somehow mystical, highly dramatic, or even a nebulously romantic experience, replete with unimaginable connotations of eroticism. And guilt for it must be paid for in full.”

Ian Brady (1938–2017) British serial killer, perpetrator of the Moors murders

As quoted by Anthony Metvier (2009) The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and its Analysis by Ian Brady, Feral House, 2001 http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Book%20Review%20-%20Gates%20of%20Janus.pdf, Internet Journal of Criminology

Life, Nature

“Involuntarily and without any definite motive, I had a thought that often occurs to me. Not only did I begin drawing relatively late in life, but it may also be that I shall not live for so very many years to come… I think I may presume without rashness: that my body will keep a certain number of years "quand bien meme" - a certain number, say between six and ten years for instance… This is the period on which I reckon firmly.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 309), p 23 1880s, 1883

Life, Thinking, Drawing

“What human motivation is responsible for getting the most wonderful things done? I would say greed. When I use the term greed, I do not mean cheating, stealing, fraud and other acts of dishonesty, I mean people seeking to get the most for themselves. One might be tempted to use “enlightened self interest” but I like greed better. Unfortunately, many people are naive enough to believe that it is compassion, concern, and "feeling another's pain" that's the superior human motivation. As such we fall easy prey to charlatans, quacks and hustlers.”

Walter E. Williams (1936) American economist, commentator, and academic

2010s, Markets, Governments, and the Common Good

Pain, People, Feeling, Fraud

“The military mind tends to be conservative, realistic and historical. The civilian mind tends to be liberal, idealistic and Utopian. Journalists, obviously, are civilians, and they tend to distrust, and to suspect, the military’s motives.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Rumsfeld’s New Spy Unit (2002)

Quotes about motivation page 4

Quotes about motivation
page 4