“Magnanimity owes no account to prudence of its motives.”

— Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 171.

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French writer, a moralist 1715–1747

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Context: The force which makes for war does not derive its strength from the interested motives of evil men; it derives its strength from the disinterested motives of good men. Pacifists have sometimes evaded that truth as making too great a concession to Mars, as seeming to imply (which it does not in fact) that in order to abolish war, men must cease to be noble.
Base motives are, of course, among those which make up the forces that produce war. Base motives are among those which get great cathedrals built and hospitals constructed-contractors' profit-seeking, the vested interests of doctors and clergy. But Europe has not been covered by cathedrals because contractors wanted to make money, or priests wanted jobs.