quotations about motivation
Motivation is a battle for the heart, not just an appeal to the mind. Passion is always an expression of the soul.
PATRICK DIXON
Building a Better Business
Attribute not the good actions of another to bad motives. Thou canst not know his heart; but the world will know by thine uncharity that thine own heart is full of envy.
ROBERT DODSLEY
Kuthumi
The motivation for me is just the game itself, just playing the game the right way and trying to win, compete every time I step out there on the floor. That's motivation enough for me to go out there and play well.
KOBE BRYANT
interview, Feb. 15, 2004
The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate.
H. L. MENCKEN
"The Scientist", A Mencken Chrestomathy
The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Developing the Leader Within You
A good motive is all that makes a good action estimable and lovely.
FREDERIC ADOLPHUS KRUMMACHER
German Parables
The motivational component of his mind is akin to a black box: replete with states that successfully guide Sigmund's behavior, but to which he has no first-person access.
MARK ROWLANDS
"Moral Subjects", The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds
Motivation is that energy which makes people do the things they never thought they could.
USHY MOHAN DAS
New Clear Energy
It is specifically because our motivations are more selfish than we would like to admit--lest our selfishness be used against us in the continual struggle to form and maintain cooperative alliances--that it is so difficult for us to perceive or accept them.
KYLE SUMMERS & BERNARD CRESPI
Human Social Evolution
We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts.
LORD KENYON
attributed, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations
Every motive will not be accompanied with its corresponding action, for every man will not act who has a motive for acting, nor act in the manner in which his motives ought to dictate.
GEORGE CRABB
English Synonymes
Interested motives are the rails on which the carriages of society run smoothly and securely, without coming in collision or injuring each other.
A. G. GUERIN D' ESTRICHE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Motives are like harlequins--there is always a second dress beneath the first.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Tricks, artful contrivances, dodges, fraud, and illusive practices, cannot be without a motive at the bottom of them.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Our motivations will shape our ethics, both individually and as a profession, and, hopefully, our ethics will also shape our motivations, calling them into question and to account when they need to.
HOWARD SERCOMBE
Youth Work Ethics
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
JIM RYAN
attributed, Inspirational Quotes to Motivate, Rejuvenate, Stimulate, and Elevate
We must not inquire too curiously into motives.... they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed. But the gilded and the hollow pretext, is pompously placed in the front of show.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers