"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Villa Ruffinella and the Villa Graziola and the Villa Taverna, but we left all these to the reader, who will want some reason for going to Frascati in person, and to whom I commend them as richly worth crossing the Atlantic for. Doubtless from a like motive we left the ruins of Tusculum unvisited, just as at Tivoli we refrained from diverging to Hadrian's Villa—the two things supremely worthy to be seen in their respective regions. But, if I had seen only half as much as I saw at Frascati—the ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... other passions only operate occasionally, the interested find the object of their ordinary cares; their motive to the practice of mechanic and commercial arts; their temptation to trespass on the laws of justice; and, when extremely corrupted, the price of their prostitutions, and the standard of their opinions on the subject of good and of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted by members of my family whose good opinion I ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... 600 varieties which are not superposed one upon another, but butt together side by side, and form a mosaic rather than a covering of tiles. Each dome contains about 50,000 pieces arranged in ninety rows and twelve divisions. The general tone is blue. The principal ornamental motive consists of a cartouche which bears in the centre two large letters "R.F." in gold. The cartouche stands out on a background of cream-white, bordered with a meander. The effect is very brilliant and chatoyant. At the base of each dome twenty-four vases in pottery, three metres ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... young ladies is a motive with him, he can have nothing to regret while at a ball, where he will see many more than ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... link was welded on to the first, while only Anna Agar knew the motive that had prompted Michael to suppress the news. She divined that it was spite towards herself, and for once in her life, with that intuition which only comes at supreme moments, she had the wisdom ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the poem can only have been the idea that the gnat could not rest in Hades, and therefore asked the shepherd whose life it had saved, for a decent burial. But this very motive, without which the whole poem loses its consistency, is wanting in the extant Culex."— Teuffel, R. L. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... or not Julius had a previous understanding with Malcolm Murchison by which he was to drive us round by the long road that day, nor do I know exactly what motive influenced the old man's exertions in the matter. He was fond of Mabel, but I was old enough, and knew Julius well enough, to be skeptical of his motives. It is certain that a most excellent understanding existed between ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... that the author is in vein, and can score another trick, is felt to be inadequate and dishonouring—"To withdraw myself from myself," he confides to his Diary(November 27), "has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive for scribbling at all." ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... air may be sent up with such velocity that some of it leaks through before the glottis has time to intercept it; or with such violence as to force the lips of the chink a little too far apart. In either case so much motive power is thrown away and to that extent the brilliancy and fullness of the tone are lost. The coup de glotte, or exact correspondence between the arrival of the air at the larynx and the adjustment of the ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... impending—perhaps even at a great distance; but already—dating from some secret hour—already in motion upon some remote line of approach. This feeling I could not assuage by sharing it with Agnes. No motive could be strong enough for persuading me to communicate so gloomy a thought with one who, considering her extreme healthiness, was but too remarkably prone to pensive, if not to sorrowful, contemplations. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... showed himself the unyielding autocrat, who, in the rough and tumble of politics, had ruled his party with a rod of iron. This man whose wonderful talents and personality had fitted him for his chosen position of champion of the plain people, and whose great motive power, against all odds, that had forced him into the first place in their hearts, was his sincere and honest ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... Katrina goes back to the morning when, at the tender age of ten, she was violently precipitated into our classroom. The motive power, we subsequently learned, was her brother Jacob, slightly older than Katrina, whose nervous system had abruptly refused the ordeal of accompanying her into the presence of the teacher. Pushing the door ajar until the opening ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical motive in the argument ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... what he had formerly done on the like occasion: he bared his shoulders, and disciplined himself so rigorously, that the soldier heard the noise of the strokes, and came running to him, beholding the Father all in blood; and rightly judging what was the motive of so strange an action, he snatched the discipline out of his hands, and crying out, "it was the criminal who ought to endure the punishment, and not the innocent to bear the pains of sin;" he immediately stripped himself, and chastised his body with all his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... giving me their present support, took up the case on account of which I had stood my trial, and, by their energy and the ventilation of its details, did much to show how greatly I had been wronged. I did not and do not suppose that all this friendship was disinterested, but, whatever its motive, it was equally welcome to a ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... writing among the papers of the house of Bourbon. But Charles IX., hearing the unusual persuasions his mother was using, thought that there must be some necessity for them, and he began to ask himself what could be her motive. He dropped his eyes; he hesitated; his distrust was not lessened by her studied phrases. Catherine was amazed at the depths of suspicion she now beheld in her ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... is the enemy of man. Of course, his design is to inflict ruin and misery on men, and to bring them to his own state and place of torment. But he does this by seducing them into rebellion against the Most High. Hatred of God is the spring of all his conduct, the motive of every enterprise which he undertakes. And Jesus, the Son of God, the vindicator of the divine honour, is necessarily the sworn eternal foe of the devil; and He has come into our world as into the ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... highest representation of human morality known to mankind, namely: Christian morality. Ethical monism has no room for three ethical fundamental views, whose full possession morality owes to Christianity, and which gives to Christian morality its highest motive power. One of these is a deeper conception of evil as a sin, as a positive rebellion against the good; another is faith in a future {385} absolute realization of the highest good in an end sometime to be reached by mankind and the individual and by means of a moral ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... Kwei-li's patriotism and hatred of the foreigner grows out of the fact that, as wife of the governor of one of the chief provinces, she had been from the beginning en rapport with the intrigues, the gossip, and the rumours of a revolution which, for intricacy of plot and hidden motive, is incomparable with any previous national change on record. Her attitude toward education as seen in her relationship with her son educated in England and America reveals the attitude of the average Chinese father and mother if they would allow ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... facts remained the same, but circumstances had changed. He could not imagine what common motive, what moral or material complicity, what influences, could have existed to make the four actors in his drama, Mme. Fauvel, Madeleine, Raoul, and Clameran, seem to have the same object ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... employments, and yet through inclination and modesty preferring a life of obscurity and retirement: than to see such a man sincerely refuse the offer made to him, of reigning over a whole nation, and at last consent to undergo the toil of government, from no other motive than that of being serviceable to his fellow-citizens. His first disposition, by which he declares that he is acquainted with the duties, and consequently with the dangers annexed to a sovereign power, shows him to have a soul more elevated and great than greatness itself; or, to speak more ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... for such a purpose. In the same manner, a person who has indulged a cold contracted selfishness may, under the influence of the same great principle, perform deeds of benevolence and kindness. Thus we perceive that the moral principle or sense of duty, when it is made the regulating motive of action, is calculated to control self-love, and preserve the proper harmony between it and ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... They were to be tried this time in groups. A roar of applause from friends in the courtroom greeted the first four as they came in. The judge said that he could not possibly understand the motive for this outburst, and added, "If it is repeated, I shall consider it contempt of court." He then ordered the bailiff to escort the four prisoners out and bring them in again.-Shades ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... to the summit of power, a monstrous imagination seized him; he projected razing the city of Lyons and massacring its inhabitants. He had even the heart to commence, and to continue this conspiracy against human nature; the ostensible crime was royalism, but the secret motive is said to have been literary vengeance! As wretched a poet and actor as a man, D'Herbois had been hissed off the theatre at Lyons, and to avenge that ignominy, he had meditated over this vast and remorseless ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... a control over the inclinations of Queens, by which Maria Leckzinska was sometimes inconvenienced; and it had lain dormant ever since. Its restoration by a Queen who it was believed could be guided by no motive but the desire to seek pretexts for showing undue favour, was of course eyed askance, and ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... the words and could not go back of them to find the motive, could not know this. He sat perfectly still when she had finished and looked steadily out across the harbor. His eyes fell on the ugly ore-pier, and he winced and uttered a ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... of a twinge in his hand, and looking down at his left hand, observed a little rivulet of blood dripping down to his finger-tips. He quickly drew his handkerchief from his pocket, as though to cover the wound before she saw it. The action and its motive did not escape the observant dark eyes. Her sex asserted itself; she advanced, ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... never quite passion that does the business—it is the dress that passion wears. I became bored—that was all. Boredom, which is another name and a frequent disguise for vitality, became the unconscious motive of all my acts. Beauty was behind me, do you understand?—I was grown." He paused. "End of school and college period. Opening of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in the public eye; by assuming the name of Wurzel-Flummery he would lose something. He weighed the two against one another, and concluded that he would gain more than he would lose. This argument furnished a good enough motive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... first beginnings of the course of deceit into which tyranny always drives its victim. It could not be called a deceit, the simple forbearing to speak of a new object which one observed in a room. No; but the motive made it a sure seed of a deceit: for when Mrs. White said, "Why, Stephen, you haven't noticed the greens! Look in the windows!" his exclamation of apparent surprise, "Why, how lovely! Where did they come from?" was a lie. It did not seem so, however, to Stephen. ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... her, almost stupidly. His mind was groping about, trying to find some adequate motive for this new line of duplicity. He kept warning himself that she was not to be trusted. Human beings, all human beings, he had found, moved only by indirection. He was too old a bird to have ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... Sallie with gnawing conscience that I had ever called her lawn fete the climax of frivolity. The dear little soul! who would have suspected that she had such a worthy motive for her ball? But, do you know, sometimes in fashionable life we catch a glimpse of the simple-minded, homely kindliness which we are taught to believe exists only among horny-handed farmers, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... of this that you may have to convince a jury who might possibly find a motive in Rodd's past, and your present, relationship to the same lady. But what has she ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... Murray?" cried the lieutenant. "No, sir. What! Do you want to leave me in the lurch?" Then, knowing from old experience the jealous motive which animated the lad who was left out of the commission, the officer clapped the midshipman on one shoulder warmly. "No, no, Roberts; I can't spare you. I want your help, my lad; and besides, you will be safer with ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... three days, three little days!—Had but a dream been sent me, had but my heart cried within me,—'Thou hast suffered long, tarry yet!' [Note: Aram has hitherto been suffered to tell his own tale without comment or interruption. The chain of reasonings, the metaphysical labyrinth of defence and motive, which he wrought around his act, it was, in justice to him, necessary to give at length, in order to throw a clearer light on his character—and lighten, perhaps, in some measure the heinousness of his crime. No moral can ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this recapitulation will take away all desire to repeat your effort in my direction. But I trust that this may find you in a missionary humor, and that you will see that I need 'looking after'—a far stronger motive with most women than friendship, isn't it? Anyway, come again soon, won't you? Afternoon is our gadding ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... fines and penalties would protect the library against loss and injury, the fear of suspension from the use of the library as the result of carelessness in its use, operating more strongly than any other motive to prevent ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... to render slaves useless. Slavery, in time, will not be a speck in our country. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abolishing it. And the abolition has already taken place in Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... where thirst, fatigue, and hunger were all forgotten. It is impossible to define the exact nature of the charm which particular minds find in the perils and adventures of discovery, whether on the shore or over the wave. Certain, however, it is, that scarce any motive of human exertion can compete with it in the powers of endurance ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... you, mistress, Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour To recompense your love: doubt not but heaven Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower, As it hath fated her to be my motive And helper to a husband. But, O strange men! That can such sweet use make of what they hate, When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts Defiles the pitchy night! so lust doth play With what it loathes, for that which is away: But more of this hereafter.—You, Diana, ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... fourth point," the advocate continued. "The form of the answer given by the jury contained an evident contradiction. Maslova is accused of wilfully poisoning Smelkoff, her one object being that of cupidity, the only motive to commit murder she could have had. The jury in their verdict acquit her of the intent to rob, or participation in the stealing of valuables, from which it follows that they intended also to acquit ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... meet its requirements and Franklin was expected to persuade the French treasury to furnish him with what he needed and to an amazing degree succeeded in doing so. The self interest which Washington believed to be the dominant motive in politics was, it is clear, actively at work. In the end the American Commissioners negotiated directly with Great Britain, without asking for the consent of their French allies. On November 30, 1782, articles of peace between Great Britain ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... now from a new motive, one that impelled more strongly than her fear of being reproached and derided by Elizabeth. Her own self-esteem was enlisted, and she was now determined not to incur her own reproach and derision. She perceived, too, with a sentimental woman's sense of the dramatic, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... intent he proceeded to the mansion of Georgiana, and was ushered into the drawing-room, with the assurance that the lady would be with him immediately. The servant, however, had no sooner quitted the apartment than Mr. Candy, actuated by a similar motive, knocked at the door, and was speedily conducted into the presence of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... purchase, and not rent, next time; and I shall not lose sight of your interests; besides the parting is six months off yet; so look up, my boy. Bless me, if I had known it was going to depress you in this way, I should have delayed the communication as long as possible; in fact, my only motive for making it now, is to give a good reason why you should make the most of your time while ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... know that she had gone to bed at 10.30 P.M. with the primary object of sleeping and the ulterior motive of getting up the next morning in time to catch an early train. We weren't to know that she had wasted her time from 11 P.M. to 3.25 A.M. listening to a procession of revellers retiring to their rooms. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... attempts were made at enfranchising the masses (as in 1896 and finally in 1905), the motive again was purely dynastic. Such constitutional measures as were taken, only strengthened racial dissensions and were equally insincere and inefficient. The present constitution of 1867, as well as the previous constitutions of 1849, ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... actually handled the things he studied, studied the causes which created the conditions which made possible the "System" which produced the Amalgamated affair. In my thirty-four years of business experience I have seen the great fortunes, which are the motive power of the "System" referred to, come out of the far West as specks upon the financial horizon and grow and grow as they travelled Eastward, until in their length, breadth, and thickness they obscured the rising sun. At short range I have seen the giant money machine put together; ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... Lear takes occasion in an entertaining preface to repudiate the charge of harboring any ulterior motive beyond that of "Nonsense pure and absolute" in any of his verses or pictures, and tells a delightful anecdote illustrative of the "persistently absurd report" that the Earl of Derby was the author of the first book of "Nonsense." In this volume he reverts ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... consequence, more different from anything that they knew—it was that which recalled to me the reality of these visions, which inflamed my desire all the more by seeming to hint a promise that my desire should be satisfied. And for all that the motive force of my exaltation was a longing for aesthetic enjoyments, the guide-books ministered even more to it than books on aesthetics, and, more again than the guide-books, the railway time-tables. What moved me was the thought that this ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... have discovered the true method of settling the sea-shore, so the Western pioneer found the best way of traversing and subduing the interior wilderness. The secret in both cases was to get the aid of women and children! They supplied men with motive, did a full half of the labor, and made it next to impossible to turn back. Mr. Flower makes a remark in connection with this subject, the truth of which ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... heredity and of the modified nature of moral responsibility by reason of transmitted tendencies which limit the freedom of the will. In Elsie Venner, in particular, the weirdly imaginative and speculative character of the leading motive suggests Hawthorne's method in fiction, but the background and the subsidiary figures have a realism that is in abrupt contrast with this, and gives a kind of doubleness and want of keeping to ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... is himself. It was rank superstition! It was a flying in the face of Providence! How could they expect to prosper, when they acted with so little foresight, rendering the struggle for existence severer still! They did not reckon what strength the additional motive, what heart the new love, what uplifting the hope of help from on high, kindled by their righteous deed, might give them—for God likes far better to help people from the inside than from the outside. They did not think that this might be just the fresh sting of life that the fainting pair ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... consolidated, and in want of the splendid alliance which you offered to it. It was unnecessary that you should praise it, in order to keep it your friend. By doing so you sacrificed honourable opinions and tastes without a motive. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of by. Still more prodigious to say, that a hound gets a chase on the hip. One would be loth to impute to the only judicious dramatic commentator of the day, a love of contradiction as the motive for quarrelling with Mr. Collier's note on this idiom. To the examples alleged by Mr. Dyce, the three following may be added; whereof the last, after the opinion of Sir John Harington, rightly refers the origin of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... chance with the rest. (Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 4, cap. 34.) Pizarro gives him credit for no such magnanimous intent. According to him, the viceroy assumed this disguise, that, his rank being unknown, he might have the better chance for escape. - It must be confessed that this is the general motive for a disguise. "I Blasco Nunez puso mucha diligencia por poder huirse si pudiera, porque venia vestido con una camiseta de Yndios por no ser conocido, i no quiso Dios porque pagase quantos males por su causa se havian hecho." Carta de ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... and drive Mr. Webster, were determined to rule or ruin, through his political disfranchisement, from the great party he was virtually the father of. All this, too, by false pretence; for a cool review of Mr. Webster's course has satisfied the country that the great depth of motive, prescience of danger to the Union and in fact, purpose of that speech, was, in the highest sense, proper and patriotic, and in no way at variance with the interpretation of either the old or new Constitution as now understood. The occasion ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... have spoke, and as you say, and as I meant, not brilliantly. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, is a very favourite maxim of mine. Perhaps, as this is one of my great undertakings, it is more owing to you, than to any other motive. I know you will laugh at me, for saying so, but I really believe it. I said a few words, too, upon your Morpeth business, which encouraged me perhaps to do afterwards, what I did with respect to Mr. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... a man on horseback had handed it to a little boy, who had delivered it over to the footman, Drummond could learn nothing. Of course, all thought of the journey to Lymport was abandoned. If but to excogitate a motive for the origin of the document, Drummond was forced to remain; and now he had it, and now he lost it again; and as he was wandering about in his maze, the Countess met him with a 'Good morning, Mr., Forth. Have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... trim parterres, those undulating velvet lawns are abhorrence to me; but I am not thinking of myself at all when I say that I think it would be well for us to return to our rooms in town. I wish to do so for quite another motive. In the first place, I have got to take care of you, mother; you must not make yourself ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... their own negroes"[20] is mentioned, both in the islands and on the continent. This condition of vague dread and unrest not only increased the severity of laws and strengthened the police system, but was the prime motive back of all the earlier efforts to check the ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... disturbances will excite investigation, and evils which governments have never been able to reach may be removed. Competition will make the accumulation of large estates difficult, property will be equalized, but no motive to effort destroyed. Science will be encouraged. Every day will add to the number of those contrivances which facilitate labor, increase production, lessen distance, and raise man from the degradation of an existence ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... him. What did he want there? It was surely some sinister motive impelled him. He was probably watching for an opportunity to gobble up the goldfish. We took his part, however, and strenuously defended his moral character, and patronized him in all ways. We gave ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... (1836) it is hard to know what to say; on the whole, it seems the most doubtful of his works in motive and quality. John Jacob Astor, now an old man, was anxious to perpetuate the fame of his commercial exploits, and was lucky enough to subsidize for this purpose the most prominent American writer of the day. The adventures ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... mention her himself after her death, except to Madame St. Aubert. From Emily, whose sensibility he feared to awaken, he had so carefully concealed her history and name, that she was ignorant, till now, that she ever had such a relative as the Marchioness de Villeroi; and from this motive he had enjoined silence to his only surviving sister, Madame Cheron, who had scrupulously ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... occasion of it. Had there been no slavery, there would have been no war. General Jackson was only partly right when he said, that while in his day the tariff was made the pretext of secession, and that by and by slavery would take its place, but that neither would be the true motive of disunion; that a desire for a separate confederacy was the final cause. This was evidently correct, yet had slavery not stood in this country there would not have come into being that peculiar state ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... for the division of the land among the citizens, in my opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for doing it, nor yet can Numa for not doing it. The equality thus produced was the very foundation and corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian constitution, while Numa had no motive for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only been recently distributed among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements made by Romulus, which we may suppose were still in force throughout ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... you! O thy mouth's a Sieve! There's not a secret thou canst keep a moment; Did I not charge thee not to name Gerardo, Till I should speak of it myself to him? Nay, 'tis the greatest motive makes me meet him, For to prevent the mischiefs else may follow; Well, I am curst for sin, and thou art made The cause o' th' sin, and curse that does ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... up for life. Why, his lips were hardly relieved of the pollution which had fallen from them in my presence; and could he in his senses, with his reason not unhinged, dare to offend his Maker doubly by the mockery of such prayers as he could offer up! What was his motive—what his end? That he was anxious for concealment was evident. Had he courted observation, I might have supposed him actuated by some far-sighted scheme of policy; and yet his rash and straightforward temperament rendered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... neither could we exclude Epicurus and his philosophy from the company of doers of good;—but the distinction is as inexorable as the line Christ drew between his and those not his; it lies not in the product, which may be mixed good and evil, but in the motive, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... rapidly adjusted. The rough tossing about the Flying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all. Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with the little boat's proper motive power. The "jury rig" was speedily dismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and a welcome ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... but was due to the operation of the rose-spirit that it had within it, and which was persistently driving it to bring into actual being that ideal of the rose which was the essence of its spirit. The ideal of the rose was the motive-power of ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... is not jealousy a kind of vanity? It is the vanity of love; will you not excuse it on account of its motive?" ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... Here are hundreds and thousands of people hearing weekly and daily what is right, and how many DO what is right?—much less LOVE what is right? What can be the reason of this, that men should know the better and choose the worse? What motive can one find out?—what reason or argument can one put before people, to make them do their duty? How can one stir them up to conquer themselves; to conquer their own love of pleasure, laziness, cowardice, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... even when deepest in works of this, the now orthodox school, I have been harassed by distressing doubts whether, after all, this enormous labour is not in vain; and, wearied by the effort, overloaded by the detail, bewildered by the argument, and sickened by the pitiless dissection of character and motive, have been tempted to cry aloud, quoting—or rather, in the agony ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... that all I saw appeared excessively ingenious and perfect. The metal is softened by heat and then flattened into plates by means of cylinders. These plates are cut into strips and stamped. The rooms in which the operations take place are spacious, lofty, and airy. The motive-power ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... desert us in our ill fortune. Nay, indeed, your fighting is to be on greater motives than those of the Jews; for although they run the hazard of war for liberty, and for their country, yet what can be a greater motive to us than glory? and that it may never be said, that after we have got dominion of the habitable earth, the Jews are able to confront us. We must also reflect upon this, that there is no fear of our suffering any incurable disaster in ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... branch of wax candles in the middle of the table. Mr. Langenau's plate was placed just at one side of the tray, at which I had seated myself. He looked pale, even to his lips. I began to think of the terrible walks in which he seemed to hunt himself down, and to wonder what was the motive, though I had often wondered that before. He took the cup of tea I offered him without speaking. Neither of us spoke for several minutes, then I said, rather irresolutely, "I am sure you tire yourself ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... to do them surely do not need to be driven by the fear of shame and the love of honor; they have, and are to have a higher and far nobler incentive, namely, God's commandment, God's fear, God's approval, and their faith and love toward God. They who have not, or regard not this motive, and let shame and honor drive them, these also have their reward, as the Lord says, Matthew vi; and as the motive, so is also the work and the reward: none of them is good, except only in ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... English horse or an English carriage!" And that, even down to a pair of shoe-buckles, everything that appeared to be good of its kind was always pronounced by him to be English. "his sort of party prejudice," said Rousseau, "if suffered to become a ruling motive in his mind, will lead to a thousand evils; for not only will his own country, his own village or club, or even a knot of his private acquaintance, be the object of his exclusive admiration; but he will be governed by his ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... the memory of Mr. Seward to say, and there would seem now no further motive for concealing the truth, that I was told in Europe, on what I regarded as reliable authority, that there was reason to believe that on the receipt of Mr. Motley's resignation Mr. Seward had written to him declining to accept it, and that this letter, by a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... seal; and though he has declared that Mr. Holwell had intended ill to the Nabob, and that he approved of those measures, and only postponed them, yet he thought it necessary, he says, to quiet the fears of the Nabob; and from this motive he did an act abhorrent to his nature, and which, he says, he expressed his abhorrence of the morning after he signed it: not that he did so; but if he had, I believe it would only have made the thing so many degrees worse. Your Lordships ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and whether they urged them from a wish to raise themselves to office, or from a principle of pure patriotism, was to the public immaterial. That they supported them zealously and faithfully, from whatever motive, was indubitable. So zealously and faithfully indeed did they exert themselves, that the very same men who had for years made a constant and violent opposition to those measures, exhausting every epithet of reprobation which the English language afforded, ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... nearly all," said the latter, thoughtfully, and looking straight before him, as if he could see the motive-power he mentally designed. ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... wonderful, that to a man of his humanity and discernment, any other effect should seem likely to proceed from the undertaking, than what would augment his concern that ever Otaheite felt the necessity of being obliged to his countrymen? One motive alone, perhaps, not contemplated by him in reasoning on the purposes which might induce to such an attempt, gave some promise of compensating for former evils, without being likely to entail others, which would still leave the balance of good and bad consequences a subject of regret. We allude ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... moral greatness awakened an Augustine, a Francis of Assisi, and a Luther. They have been the unrivalled pattern of all mature and moral manhood for nearly two thousand years." In law much is made of the question of motive. What motive could the apostles have had in perpetrating the story of Christ's resurrection upon people? Every one of them (except one) died a martyr's death for his loyalty to the story of Christ's resurrection. What had they to gain by fraud? Would they have sacrificed their lives ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... must; they have no other motive than a passionate desire to express their sense of form. Untempted, or incompetent, to create illusions, to the creation of form they devote themselves entirely. Presently, however, the artist is joined by a patron and a public, and soon there grows up a demand ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... to me by the words of our text—the Obligation, the Sufficiency, the Pattern, and the Motive, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... discovery to Lord Clarendon; but I reserve the parts of the Lualaba and Tanganyika for future confirmation. I have no doubts on the subject, for I receive the reports of natives of intelligence at first hand, and they have no motive for deceiving me. The best maps are formed from the same sort of reports at third or fourth hand. Cold N.E. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... substantial utility; and so they manufactured fallacies which the plainer school have well exposed. But both schools are in error. The dignified parts of Government are those which bring it force—which attract its motive power. The efficient parts only employ that power. The comely parts of a Government HAVE need, for they are those upon which its vital strength depends. They may not do anything definite that a simpler polity would not do better; but they are the preliminaries, the ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... neuropathic women of the upper class, who neither understand themselves nor are wholly comprehensible to others. In 'Monsieur de Camors', crowned by the Academy, he has yielded to the demands of a stricter realism. Especially after the fall of the Empire had removed a powerful motive for gilding the vices of aristocratic society, he painted its hard and selfish qualities as none of his contemporaries could have done. Octave Feuillet was elected to the Academie Francaise in 1862 to succeed Scribe. He ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... Venus—latet enim in muliere aliquid majus potentiusque, omnibus aliis humanis voluptatibus, as [4722]one holds, there's something in a woman beyond all human delight; a magnetic virtue, a charming quality, an occult and powerful motive. The husband rules her as head, but she again commands his heart, he is her servant, she is only joy and content: no happiness is like unto it, no love so great as this of man and wife, no such comfort as [4723]placens uxor, a sweet wife: [4724]Omnis amor magnus, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the summer of the year 1795 at Clifton with their son Frederick, and their two daughters Sophia and Marianne. They had taken much care of the education of their children; nor were they ever tempted, by any motive of personal convenience or temporary amusement, to hazard the permanent ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... time under your late designation, being aware that the liberty I may take as a friend might not be deemed decorous to you under the title of "Protector," for I shall not with a gentleman of your understanding take into account, as a motive for abstaining to speak truth, any chance of your resentment. Nay, were I certain that such would be the effect of this letter, I would nevertheless perform such an act of friendship, in repayment of the support you gave me ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... There is something so mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield Bargain for Children, that if this Lover carries his Point, and observes the Rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him Success, but also that it may animate others to follow his Example. I know not one Motive relating to this Life which would produce so many honourable and worthy Actions, as the Hopes of obtaining a Woman of Merit: There would ten thousand Ways of Industry and honest Ambition be pursued by young Men, who believed that the Persons admired had Value ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... that there is no water there; and when from the narrower ravines you miss the lochs and tarns, which give to Cumberland and the Highlands of Scotland their peculiar character, your disappointment scarcely falls short of mortification. Perhaps, indeed, a double motive may have operated with us to produce this feeling. Our eyes pined, in the first place, for the object on which, in such situations, they had been accustomed at home to repose; and secondly, our fishing-rods ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... to believe the same thing of another girl whom we never saw, told by nobody knows who, nor when, nor where? How strange and inconsistent is it, that the same circumstance that would weaken the belief even of a probable story, should be given as a motive for believing this one, that has upon the face of it every token of absolute impossibility ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... difficult justly to appraise or analyse my relations with Fanny. In one mood I see merely youth, folly, vanity, and romantic emotionalism, directing my conduct; and again I fancy I discern some loftier motive, such as sincerely chivalrous generosity, humanity, unselfish desire to help and uplift, etc. Doubtless, in this as in most matters, a variety of motives and influences played their part in shaping ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... was quite impossible," went on David. "She said there was no motive—I mean—She said you were foolish, and frivolous, and thought first of your ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... sympathy, adding, with as little appearance of curiosity as I could command:— "And your object in coming back is only, then, to—to—be near the scene of your great trouble?" "No, Mr Roy; that is not the motive of my journey. I do not believe either that my boy's corpse lies concealed among the grasses of the plateau, or that it was swept away, as has been suggested, by the mountain cataract. Neither hypothesis ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... for not shipping it. To aid the South on this ground would be hypocrisy which the world would detect at once. Let her make her ultimatum, and there are enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract her in the balance. Of course her motive is to cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures, that threatens even to usurp her history. In twenty more years of prosperity, it will require a close calculation to determine whether England, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... clear, moreover, that one obvious motive or policy had dictated the false application of the three chapters. It will be observed that priest rule is established in them; for, according to this teaching, no one can enter the kingdom of God 'without priestly operation in baptism; no one abide or be fed in it without the same in ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... reason, she may be, but love me, most assuredly, she does not. Nay more, I am persuaded she would be glad to be freed from my presence, which is an evident restraint and annoyance to her, were it not for some motive stronger than natural affection that ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... very abrupt, we learn next that a beggar named Lazarus[95] was laid at this rich man's gate, full of sores. Whether the position was chosen by the man himself, or by his friends for him, the motive is obvious—it was expected that where so much was expended, perhaps also wasted, some crumbs ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... There was a sharp crackling at the stern, where, in a narrow space, the reaction motors provided the forward motive power. In moments of excitement he referred to himself in the third person. ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... money upon them. But no one should be taught to consider them valuable for mere parade and attraction. Making the education of girls such a series of 'man-traps,' makes the whole system unhealthy, by poisoning the motive. ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... ATHERTON of having written The Avalanche (MURRAY) either for the amusement of exercise in an unfamiliar medium, or, well, for any motive that might explain a production certainly not quite up to her own standard. Its publishers (who may be prejudiced) consider The Avalanche as "a brilliant and engaging study of mystery and romance;" me it impressed as a melodrama dependent on one long-heralded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... not what score he may have against me," he said at length; "but what injures me must injure the state, and if Trescorre has any such motive for withdrawing his opposition, it must be because he believes the constitution will defeat ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... love had looked for their Saviour, experienced a bitter disappointment. Yet the purposes of God were being accomplished: He was testing the hearts of those who professed to be waiting for His appearing. There were among them many who had been actuated by no higher motive than fear. Their profession of faith had not affected their hearts or their lives. When the expected event failed to take place, these persons declared that they were not disappointed; they had never believed that Christ ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... metal walls of the capsule, which takes place upon the boiling of its contents, provides the motive force, transmitted through the rigid rod to raise the long arm of the lever B D, and as this expansion only takes place at a predetermined temperature, the lever will only be acted upon when the critical temperature is reached, no sensible effect being produced at even 1 deg. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... in the most imminent jeopardy,—for what? Can any one suppose that they do this for the sake of the silver medal, or the ten or twenty shillings awarded to those who thus act by the Lifeboat Institution? Do men in other circumstances hold their lives so cheap? Assuredly there is a higher, a nobler motive that prompts the heroes of our coast to their deeds of self-sacrifice ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... however, arose from scientific and mechanical discoveries—the application of heat to the production of motive power. As long as water, which is a non-exhaustive source of motion, was used, the people were scattered over the land; or if segregation took place, it was in the neighborhood of running streams. The application of steam to the propulsion of machinery, and the discovery of engines capable ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher |
