“Now there is no murder without a motive.”
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
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Agatha Christie 320
English mystery and detective writer 1890–1976Related quotes

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

Quoted in Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope: A Memoir (1970), ch. 35

“One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.”
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
“Without a deadline, the motivation to do a task is small to nonexistent.”
101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

6th Public Talk, Saanen (28 July 1970) 'The Mechanical Activity of Thought" http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/the-impossible-question/1970-07-28-jiddu-krishnamurti-the-impossible-question-the-mechanical-activity-of-thought in The Impossible Question (1972) http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=9&chid=57009, Part I, Ch. 6], p. 63 J.Krishnamurti Online, Serial No. 330
1970s
Context: What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally, but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit, of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind, polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure.

“And now, our submarines are armed with mass murder, our silly, only way of deterring mass murder.”
Pt. 1
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)