Quotes about motive
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“In relinquishing power...I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honourable motives, clamours for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice.”

Robert Peel (1788–1850) British Conservative statesman

Resignation speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/jun/29/resignation-of-the-ministry in the House of Commons (29 June 1846) after the repeal of the Corn Laws Prime Minister

Food, Motivation, Sense

“Propaganda tries to surround man by all possible routes in the realm of feelings as well as ideas, by playing on his will or on his needs, through his conscious and his unconscious, assailing him in both his private and his public life. It furnishes him with a complete system for explaining the world, and provides immediate incentives to action. We are here in the presence of an organized myth that tries to take hold of the entire person. Through the myth it creates, propaganda imposes a complete range of intuitive knowledge, susceptible of only one interpretation, unique and one-sided, and precluding any divergence. This myth becomes so powerful that it invades every arena of consciousness, leaving no faculty or motivation intact. It stimulates in the individual a feeling of exclusiveness, and produces a biased attitude.”

Jacques Ellul book Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes

Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1962)

Life, World, Feeling, Motivation

“During the last six years the United States Army has not only matured greatly, but its officers have grown vastly more aware of their world-wide responsibilities as military men. Allied command has become the accepted pattern of military operation, and many of the insular differences that once caused us to question the motives of our allies have now been completely resolved. If we will only remember that from time to time some difficulties do exist, we shall be better prepared to settle them without exaggerating their dangers.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x-xi

Men, World, Motivation, Question

“Art can be a spiritual practice. Not all artists consider this to be true for them, but with the proper motivation and focus, it can be. A spiritual practice is an activity that enables you to develop the qualities of mental clarity, mindfulness of the moment, wisdom, compassion and access to revelations of higher mystic states of awareness. A contemplative method, such as yoga or meditation, will stabilize and assist in the progress of spiritual awareness. An artist’s craft can become a contemplative method, and the creations may provide outward signs of an inner spiritual journey.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

High Times interview (2002)

Wisdom, Art, Motivation

“Those who have found this middle point are true and wonderworking adepts of science and reason. They are masters of the wealth of worlds, confidants and friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature obeys them because they will what is willed by the law which is the motive power of Nature. It is this which the Saviour of the world spoke of as the Kingdom of Heaven; this also is the Sanctum Regnum of the Holy Kabalah. It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon ; it is the Sceptre of Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the harvests on earth.”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: The History Of Magic (1860), p.501

World, Law, Confidence, Star

“Many people look at bitcoin as a means of enrichment, but for me it was not just an instrument of prosperity - it was the idea of absolute freedom. I believed in this idea even when it was not relevant at all and Bitcoin did not become ten times more valuable in a year, simply because it corresponded to my ideal ideas about money. This event did not affect my mood, it was rather the opposite, the motivation to continue the path. But still, once again writing on the Internet that you have bitcoins is not worth it.”

Maxim Mernes (1996) Russian businessman, investor, blogger

About libertarianism and blockchain Source: Максим Мернес: "Нужно покупать ликвидную криптовалюту", Maxim Mernes, 2019T08:56, @Максим Мернес, ru, 2019-11-21 https://argumenti.ru/society/2018/12/595045,

Money, People, Motivation, Idea

“I am well aware that many will dismiss this book as a hagiographical account of Modi’s term as CM. To them I can only say, for 12 long years you have swallowed uncritically poisonous propaganda against him based on statements and testimonies which are being proven motivated, cooked-up, and plain false by courts and the SIT team. Let this come as a necessary antidote to that malicious smear campaign. I assure you that, unlike most of Teesta Setalvad’s witnesses, none of the people who spoke to me used tutored language. All of them spoke spontaneously on video. Unlike Teesta’s many witnesses, none of these people are likely to disown what they told me.”

Madhu Kishwar (1959) Indian activist and writer

Madhu Purnima Kishwar: Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, Manushi Publications, Delhi 2014.
Modi, Muslims and Media. Voices from Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, 2014

People, Books, Motivation, Falseness

“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)

Motivation, Thinking, Study, Learning

“Super longevity motivates people to think very long-term, protect the environment, recycle, prevent wars and destructions, and do everything possible to achieve a better quality of life instead of leaving a big mess to the next generation to fix.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Life, War, People, Motivation

“The Transhumanist Party aims to motivate and mobilize both female and male scientists and engineers to take on additional responsibilities as rational politicians. It does not mean replacing democracy with technocracy. It means that our government needs help in making the right policies and investing in science, health, and technology for the improvement of the human condition and the long-term survival of the human race.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Health, Making love, Democracy, Motivation

“Man knows so little about his fellows. In his eyes all men or women act upon what he believes would motivate him if he were mad enough to do what the other man or woman is doing.”

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August (1932), Chapter 2

Women, Men, Motivation, Madness

“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

Communication, Motivation, Chance, Personality

“The negationist stand against the pre-existence of the Ayodhya temple was an extreme example of how the Humanities often serve to provide a scholarly veneer to theses that arise purely from political motives.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Ch 19
2010s, On Modi Time (2015)

Motivation

“After all, the call for historical proof was only launched by India’s secularists spoiling for a fight, as a dispersionary tactic… They themselves have not contributed any evidence to the search for the historical true story, they were actually demanding from the Hindu side what they themselves never provided, - indeed, never intended to provide. In the process, their ulterior motives have come to light…”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya: The Case Against the Temple (2002)

Search, Motivation, Light, Fight

“They themselves of course can get away with blatant lies, because they are shielded by a politically motivated press against any criticism that would threaten their eminence. But real scientists do not count on such exemptions.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Motivation

“Islam has till today retained a lot of its medieval self- righteousness. While native Americans who claim back ancestral sacred places may have to confront economical interests, juridical technicalities or other small-human opposition against their demands, there is now hardly any ideologically motivated resistance against respecting their culture and their historical sensitivities. But in India, and in the countries which Islam has carved out of if, there is still a strong presence of an ideological drive to islamize India, and to make this clear by wresting all kinds of real and symbolical concessions from the Hindus, and by refusing them any concession whatsoever in return. The symbols of humiliation that have been inflicted on the Hindus, are being defended.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Making love, Motivation, Strong, Self-confidence

“In fact, this conclusion is merely a restatement of what was a matter of consensus until a few years ago. This time it is supported by a bundle of evidence, but it had been known all along. It is only recently that politically motivated academics have manufactured doubts concerning this coherent and well-attested tradition. And it is not on the strength of arguments, but exclusively through their grip on the media, that they temporarily managed to create the impression that the Hindu case was built on myth and concoction.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Motivation, Support, Time

“Tis impossible to judge with much Precision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Jonathan Sewall (October 1759)
1750s

World, Motivation, Nature, Knowledge

“This group of boys showed considerable: and consistent effects from medication with UML or LSD daily for two to eleven months. Their behavior, ward management, school-room adjustment and progress at home changed favorably with less acting out and less disturbed behavior. They not only needed no other tranquilizing, sedative, or antidepressant medication, but furthermore, unlike the tranquilizers which made them sleepy and groggy, they were generally cheerful and alert. Personnel and families noted the difference. Repeated psychiatric interviews revealed a change in fantasy material which was less bizarre, personalized or disturbing. Depressive, anxious and paranoid attitudes were focused on real objective problems. Insight was impressive. Intellectual changes, as seen in psychometric tests, indicated improved maturity, better organization and motivation with a rise in IQ which was reflected in improved school work. The Rorschach and drawing tests also showed increased maturity and control with clearer thinking.”

Lauretta Bender (1897–1987) American neuropsychiatrist

L. Bender, L. Cobrinik, G. Faretra, D.V. Siva Sankar, "The Treatment of Childhood Schizophrenia with LSD and UML" http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_bender_1966a.html, Biological Treatment of Mental Illness, Proceedings II of the International Conference of the Manfred Sakel Foundation 10/31-11/3/1962, 1966; 2(4):463-91.

School, Family, Behavior, Home

“May I inquire as to your motives?”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

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

Motivation

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

Jack Vance Demon Princes

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

Motivation, Revenge

“Both borderline science and many religions are motivated in part by a serious concern about the nature of the universe and our role in it, and for this reason merit our consideration and regard. In addition, I think it possible that many religions involve at their cores an attempt to come to grips with profound mysteries of our individual life histories, as described in the last chapter. But both in borderline science and in organized religion there is much that is specious or dangerous. While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Introduction (p. xii)
Broca's Brain (1979)

Life, Religion, History, Motivation

“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]

Making love, Feeling, Motivation, Heart

“Thousands of writers, of poets, of scholars, have laboured to increase knowledge, to dissipate error, and to create that atmosphere of scientific thought, without which the marvels of our century could never appeared. And these thousands of philosophers, of poets, of scholars, of inventors, have themselves been supported by the labour of past centuries. They have been upheld and nourished through life, both physically and mentally, by legions of workers and craftsmen of all sorts. They have drawn their motive force from the environment.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 1 : Our Riches, p. 57

Life, Error, Motivation, Support

“Negrophobes exist. It is not hatred of the Negro, however, that motivates them; they lack the courage for that, or they have lost it. Hate is not inborn; it has to be constantly cultivated, to be brought into being, in conflict with more or less recognized guilt complexes. Hate demands existence and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behavior; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching. Each to his own side of the street.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Hate, Behavior, Motivation, Courage

“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

Bad luck, People, Motivation, Thinking

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

Robert A. Heinlein book Lost Legacy

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

Intelligence, Motivation

“The motives of people like Dalrymple, those who wilfully set out to deny the facts of the destruction of the Hindu civilisation of India, are the opposite. Their denial of the large-scale destruction and denigration of Hindu religion and culture by the Muslim raiders, invaders and conquerors of India is motivated by the deep-seated political aim of the Independence movement to brook no divide between Hindu and Muslim. It was for its time and for all time a noble aim. That was one of the things V. S. Naipaul said to the BJP gathering--that the project of Nehru and Gandhi to avoid going into the import of that history was in itself positively motivated. There is never any justification for one community in India to conduct a pogrom against another. Not then, not now. But surely the construction of history should be truthful. Suppression can only exacerbate the anger.”

William Dalrymple (1965) author and historian

Farrukh Dhondy, Does Willy Get It Wilfully Wrong?, Outlook India, https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/does-willy-get-it-wilfully-wrong/223746 About William Dalrymple

People, Truth, Religion, History

“I am aware that the age is not what we all wish. But I am sure, that the only means of checking its precipitate degeneracy, is heartily to concur with whatever is the best in our time; and to have some more correct standard of judging what that best is, than the transient and uncertain favour of a court. If once we are able to find, and can prevail on ourselves to strengthen an union of such men, whatever accidentally becomes indisposed to ill-exercised power, even by the ordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, and cannot long be joined, without in some degree assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough, (and for a worthy man perhaps too much,) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostacy.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)

Men, Age, Exercises, Motivation

“Escape, God how we all need escape from this tiny here. The need for it has motivated just about everything man has ever done in any direction other than that of the satisfaction of his physical appetites; it has led him along weird and wonderful pathways; it has led him into art and religion, ascetism and astrology, dancing and drinking, poetry and insanity. All of these have been escapes because he has known only recently the true direction of escape—outward, into infinity and eternity, away from this little flat if rounded surface we’re born on and die on. This mote in the solar system, this atom in the galaxy.”

Fredric Brown book The Lights in the Sky Are Stars

Source: The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (1953), Chapter 5 “2001” (pp. 243-244; "ascetism" should be "asceticism")

God, Religion, Art, Motivation

“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

Motivation

“The moment one speaks of returning to the concept of a revolutionary communist party, and motivates this return with a reclamation of past categories of struggle (i. e. the vanguard, proletariat-bourgeoisie, revisionism and anti-revisionism, revolutionary science), every defense mechanism conditioned by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the supposed triumph of world capitalism is mobilized to inoculate the reader from ideological contamination.”

J. Moufawad-Paul Canadian academic and writer

Prologue: Maoism and Philosophy
Continuity and Rupture:Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain (2016)

World, Motivation, Science, Past

“Another discovery: We are not liberated until we liberate others. So long as we need to control other people, however benign our motives, we are captive to that need. Giving them freedom, we free ourselves. And they are free to grow in their own way.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing

People, Way, Motivation, Freedom

“Religion is a mighty motive force. So is rapine. But where religion in goaded on by rapine and rapine serves as a handmaid to religion, the propelling force that is generated by these together is only equalled by the profundity of human misery and devastation they leave behind them in their march. Heaven and Hell making a common case - such were the forces, overwhelmingly furious, that took India by surprise the day that Mahmud Ghaznavi crossed the Indus and invaded her.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

1923. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1992). Negationism in India: Concealing the record of Islam.

Making love, Religion, Motivation, Hell

“You know, in his last six months Vasyl had changed a lot. Many tried to talk him out of going to the war, but he was adamant. All his money and all his energy he gave to the cause of the new Ukraine. It was his motivation in life. What a shame that a sharpshooter’s bullet took the life of terrific vocalist and patriot. Our duty is to remember Vasyl Slipak. I want to join my Ukrainian colleagues to discuss some future art projects. We already had a meeting with Volodymyr Syvokhip, director of the Lviv Philharmonic Society, and we plan to hold a Vasyl Slipak Open International Memorial Music Marathon in Lviv from June 29 till July 1.”

Vasyl Slipak (1974–2016) Ukrainian opera singer

2017 Nicolas Krauze, conductor, the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe (France). “He loved Ukraine above all”. The Day. Кyiv.ua. - 2017. - 7 March. https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/culture/he-loved-ukraine-above-all

Life, Money, War, Art

“This method of mental training is, therefore, the immediate preparation for the moral; it completely destroys the root of immorality by never allowing sensuous enjoyment to become the motive. Formerly, that was the first motive to be stimulated and developed, because it was believed that otherwise the pupil could not be influenced or controlled at all.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

General Nature of New Eduction contiunued p. 31
Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation) 1808, Third Address

Motivation, Training

“We do without the lawyers, certainly… It would not seem reasonable to us, in a case where the only interest of the nation is to find out the truth, that persons should take part in the proceedings who had an acknowledged motive to color it. But who defends the accused? If he is a criminal he needs no defense, for he pleads guilty in most instances. The plea of the accused is not a mere formality with us, as with you. It is usually the end of the case.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 19

Truth, Color, Motivation, Parting

“In your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime, using the word broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors, resulted from the inequality in the possessions of individuals; want tempted the poor, lust of greater gains, or the desire to preserve former gains, tempted the well-to-do. Directly or indirectly, the desire for money, which then meant every good thing, was the motive of all this crime, the taproot of a vast poison growth, which the machinery of law, courts, and police could barely prevent from choking your civilization outright.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 19

Money, Law, Motivation

“The organization of society with you was such that officials were under a constant temptation to misuse their power for the private profit of themselves or others. Under such circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the contrary, society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium on dishonesty.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25439 (1888), Ch. 6.

Bad luck, Making love, Way, Motivation

“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)

Motivation, Thinking

“Professor Lal was already a veteran whose major book, History of the Khaljis, was compulsory reading for students of medieval Indian history from the undergraduate class onwards. I still find it very useful when I teach any course on the Delhi sultanate. … Historiographically the book fell entirely and conspicuously in the genre of nationalist historiography whose hallmark was its challenge· to the portrayal of medieval Indian history as a story of unrelenting conflict between the medieval Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. History of the Khaljis is one of the best works in this genre: empirically sound, objective in its assessment of events and persons, non-judgemental in its evaluation of the motives of rulers or their opponents. The remarkable quality gave the book a long life in the discipline, even when newer problematiques of socio-economic history began to displace the ones of dynastic history that had remained the preoccupation of the earlier generation.”

K. S. Lal (1920–2002) Indian historian

Harbans Mukhia, Obituary, The Indian Historical Review http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/037698360102800245

Life, Books, History, Motivation

“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

Making love, Motivation, Business, Relation ships

“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–]

Health, Making love, Food, Motivation

“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)

Motivation

“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

People, Motivation

“We must call attention, among the workers parties or the extremist tendencies within those parties, to the need to undertake an effective ideological action in order to combat the emotional influence of advanced capitalist methods of propaganda. On every occasion, by every hyper-political means, we must publicize desirable alternatives to the spectacle of the capitalist way of life, so as to destroy the bourgeois idea of happiness. At the same time, taking into account the existence, within the various ruling classes, of elements that have always tended (out of boredom and thirst for novelty) toward things that lead to the disappearance of their societies, we should incite the persons who control some of the vast resources that we lack to provide us with the means to carry out our experiments, out of the same motives of potential profit as they do with scientific research.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Our Immediate Tasks
Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)

Life, Happiness, Way, Motivation

“Now, what is a myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question: What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe - the powers if your own body and of nature.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth (book), p. 28

Life, God, Motivation, Question

“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.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

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

Love, Life, Men, Education

“He blamed as severely what he thought a bad action, when the motive was a feeling of duty, as if the agents had been consciously evil doers. He would not have accepted as a plea in mitigation for inquisitors, that they sincerely believed burning heretics to be an obligation of conscience. But though he did not allow honesty of purpose to soften his disapprobation of actions, it had its full effect on his estimation of characters. No one prized conscientiousness and rectitude of intention more highly, or was more incapable of valuing any person in whom he did not feel assurance of it.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/49/mode/1up pp. 49-50

Bad luck, Feeling, Motivation, Evil

“The first step, then, is the most important: to realize you have a remarkable social tool that you are not cultivating. The best way to see this is to try it out. Stop your incessant interior monologue and pay deeper attention to people. Attune yourself to the shifting moods of individuals and the group. Get a read on each person’s particular psychology and what motivates them. Try to take their perspective, enter their world and value system. You will suddenly become aware of an entire world of nonverbal behavior you never knew existed, as if your eyes could now suddenly see ultraviolet light. Once you sense this power, you will feel its importance and awaken to new social possibilities.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 2 : Transform Self-love into Empathy
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People, World, Way, Behavior

“Although styles of leadership change with the times, one constant remains: people are always ambivalent about those in power. They want to be led but also to feel free; they want to be protected and enjoy prosperity without making sacrifices; they both worship the king and want to kill him. When you are the leader of a group, people are continually prepared to turn on you the moment you seem weak or experience a setback. Do not succumb to the prejudices of the times, imagining that what you need to do to gain their loyalty is to seem to be their equal or their friend; people will doubt your strength, become suspicious of your motives, and respond with hidden contempt. Authority is the delicate art of creating the appearance of power, legitimacy, and fairness while getting people to identify with you as a leader who is in their service. If you want to lead, you must master this art from early on in your life. Once you have gained people’s trust, they will stand by you as their leader, no matter the bad circumstances.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 15 : Make Them Want to Follow You
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Life, Bad luck, People, Making love

“Though patriotism includes a sentimental, as it were a family, feeling for place, we can distinguish the ethical motive from the sentimental. At certain times in certain countries there has been a moral urgency to be patriotic when the actual or ideal policy of a man’s nation has been a sine qua non for his conscience. But to-day patriotism, in so far as it means subordination to a specifically national policy, is superannuated. This war, we assume, is not being fought-not by most of us-for any merely national end; we are fighting it, primarily and clearly, for our lives, and secondarily, and, alas! vaguely, for a new international order.”

Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) poet

"Traveller's Return", in Horizon, February 1941, Reprinted in David Pierce Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century: A Reader. Cork University Press, 2000.

War, Family, Feeling, Motivation

“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."”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

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)

Game, Motivation

“I never forgot what you did to me you left me hurting but I am thankful to your act it was so far my best motivation.”

Albara Almerf (2000)

Motivation, Hurt

“These considerations did not make us overlook the folly of premature attempts to dispense with the inducements of private interest in social affairs, while no substitute for them has been or can be provided: but we regarded all existing institutions and social arrangements as being (in a phrase I once heard from Austin) "merely provisional," and we welcomed with the greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not but operate as a most useful education of those who took part in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives pointing directly to the general good, or making them aware of the defects which render them and others incapable of doing so.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/233/mode/1up pp. 233-234

Pleasure, Education, Making love, Motivation

“The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world. In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Yet in retrospect, we see how the artist's fidelity has strengthened the fiber of our national life. If sometimes our great artist have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Speech at Amherst College

Life, Truth, World, Making love

“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.

Life, Motivation

“The news isn’t how bad things are. The news is how good they could be. And our own activity could be part of the unfolding of Heaven on earth. There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds.”

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

Love, Bad luck, World, Making love

“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

God, World, Motivation, Chance

“The greatest single obstacle to the resolution of great problems in the past was thinking they could not be solved—a conviction based on mutual distrust. Psychologists and sociologists have found that most of us are more highly motivated than we think each other to be!”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Motivation, Problem, Thinking, Past

“Every day, COVID-19 seems to reach a new and tragic milestone. More than 210,000 cases have now been reported to WHO, and more than 9,000 people have lost their lives. Every loss of life is a tragedy. It’s also motivation to double down and do everything we can to stop transmission and save lives. We also need to celebrate our successes. Yesterday, Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started. Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world, that even the most severe situation can be turned around. Of course, we must exercise caution – the situation can reverse. But the experience of cities and countries that have pushed back this virus give hope and courage to the rest of the world.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---20-march-2020, World Health Organization.

Life, People, World, Hope

“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

Motivation, Knowledge

“There’s a really interesting thing about despair, I think. It has a spark in it of deep motivation. I think despair can be described as looking at every possible scenario and seeing no hopeful one. But what that means is, if you can present someone in despair with one scenario that looks hopeful – that looks like a real possibility – then there’s this immense wealth of motivation to drive toward it, because despair is not a nice place to be.”

Shaun Chamberlin

Kosmos interview on grief, Dark Optimism, aliveness and activism (2014) http://www.darkoptimism.org/2014/12/21/dark-optimism-power-of-grief/#post-4075

Hope, Motivation, Thinking, Despair

“[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

Motivation

“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

Money, People, Motivation

“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)

People, Making love, Motivation, Thinking

“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)

Democracy, Motivation, Problem, Fight

“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

People, Motivation

“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)

Love, Making love, Motivation

“Each of us can contribute, though. With our votes, our voices, our food choices, our skills and our dollars. We must overhaul both corporate practices and government policies. We must transform culture. Building community around solutions is the most important thing. I am never going to give up working to protect and restore this magnificent planet. Every bit of habitat we preserve, every tenth of a degree of warming we prevent, really does matter. Thankfully, I'm not motivated by hope, but rather a desire to be useful.”

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (1980) American marine biologist and policy expert

Source: A love story for the coral reef crisis https://www.ted.com/talks/ayana_elizabeth_johnson_a_love_story_for_the_coral_reef_crisis (April 2019)

Food, Hope, Communication, Motivation

“[T]he trade of Africa...is a motive for preventing territory from falling into the hands of other Powers, that those Powers will probably use the dominion which we concede to them for the purpose of crippling the trade that we otherwise should possess; and that seems to be a legitimate motive for the accession of territory which might otherwise be wanting.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (25 November 1891), quoted in Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury's World: Conservative Environments in Late-Victorian Britain (2001), p. 226

Motivation

“Of true benevolence, its charms divine,
With other motives to call forth its power,
And its grand triumphs, multiplied beyond
All former bounds, in this its golden age,
Humbly I sing, awed by the holy theme;
A theme exalted, though as yet unsung,
In beauty rich, of inspiration full,
And worthy of a nobler harp than that
From which heroic strains sublimely sound.”

Carlos Wilcox (1794–1827) American poet

Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox: with a memoir of his life (1828), p. 99 https://archive.org/details/remainsofrevcarl00wilc/page/100/mode/2up Poetry

Age, Beauty, Motivation, Singing

“A true student is like a sponge. Absorbing what goes on around him, filtering it, latching on to what he can hold. A student is self-critical and self-motivated, always trying to improve his understanding so that he can move on to the next topic, the next challenge. A real student is also his own teacher and his own critic. There is no room for ego there.”

Ryan Holiday book Ego Is the Enemy

Motivation, Understanding, Teachers, Self-confidence

“Do I still need to tell you that I am not guided by selfish motives? No gentlemen, although Belgium is small, it is happy and content with its fate. I have no ambition other than to serve it. In this century, our civilized society imparts unprecedented values to barbarian communities in other parts of the world.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians in a speech at the Brussels Geographic Conference on September 12, 1876. Quoted from the book "Zaïre, Ketens van Koper (translated: Zaire, Chains of Copper)" Chapter 2: From Leopold II to Bwana Kitoko, page 16. Leuven, Kritak Fonds, 1978. ISBN 9063030185”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Fate, Happiness, Books, World

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

Gavin de Becker book The Gift of Fear

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

Motivation, Question

“Morality, to be effective, has to be well-reasoned. To want to repress evil only by coercion, and to obtain morality by a kind of education using constraint, without motivating it from within, is to make an artificial thing, devoid of lasting value.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 59.

Education, Making love, Motivation, Evil

“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)

Motivation, Waiting

“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)

Feeling, Motivation, Sense, Time

“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

People, Motivation, Suffering

“Lord yes, in a certain sense it was a preventive war, [motivated by] the constant threat of attack, the greater likelihood of its inevitability in the future, and by the military's claim: today war is still possible without defeat, but not in two years! Yes, the generals. It could only have been avoided by a rapprochement with England, that is still my conviction. But after we had decided for a [common] policy with Austria, we could not desert her in such danger.”

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (1856–1921) German chancellor during World War I

Remarks to Conrad Haussmann (24 February 1918), quoted in Konrad H. Jarauschl, ‘The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914’, Central European History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), p. 48

War, Motivation, Sense, Future

“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)

People, Art, Motivation, Motivational

“Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Feeling, Motivation

“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.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

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

God, People, Motivation

“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

Motivation, Heart

“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)

Hate, Motivation, Understanding

“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

History, Motivation, Forgetting

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

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Motivation, Heart

“Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, two thousand four hundred and sixty years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Opening statement.
1870s, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Men, Religion, Motivation

“In the tradition of the ancients and of many great thinkers of our race, I am a Deist. Echoing the words of far greater thinkers than myself, I see an intelligent motivating force throughout the universe and behind Nature's Laws.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

WotansVolk
Focus Fourteen

Law, Intelligence, Motivation, Nature

“The methods of coping with crime have no doubt undergone several changes, but mainly in a theoretic sense. In practice, society has retained the primitive motive in dealing with the offender; that is, revenge.”

Emma Goldman book Anarchism and Other Essays

Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure

Motivation, Revenge, Sense, Change

“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

Motivation, Decision

“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)

Life, Motivation, Study, Science

“Since there is nothing new under the sun. The aim of motivation is to confirm what you already know. Simply, clearing your doubts.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Motivation, Sun

“These motivators are no better or worse than pastors, or any religious leaders out there.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Motivation

“In the case of feedback, when someone says you can't do something or accomplish anything great in life; then this is a great source of motivation for you. It is a waking call to force you to do better than before.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Motivation

“The beggar who can write and read requires proper motivation than daily support from others.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Motivation, Support, Reading

“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)

People, Motivation