Motives

Famous quotes containing the word motives:

    Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.
    —J.M. (James Matthew)

    The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practise. The rest is affectation and imposture.
    William Hazlitt (1778–1830)

    The motives to actions and the inward turns of mind seem in our opinion more necessary to be known than the actions themselves; and much rather would we choose that our reader should clearly understand what our principal actors think than what they do.
    Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)