"Motive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not seek to learn. Trust Davidson to make money, and to make the most of life also as he went along. He always had the best of everything; and surely now he had, for the leisurely, ease-seeking Belle Helene, not actuated by any vast motive beyond that of the bee and the honey flower, slipped on down and ahead with perfect ease, while we, grimy, slow, determined, plowed on in her wake losing miles each hour the graceful Belle Helene chose to show us her light disdainful heels, serenely indifferent ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... refers to the tapster, it signifies to drain, to empty; as it is related to hang, it means to be conveyed to execution on a hurdle. In Froth's answer, it is the same as to bring along by some motive or power. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... subject of great mercies God has shown her. From some of these very good doctrine may be gathered, and this, as she declares, was, besides compliance with obedience, her principal motive (in writing this book), namely to enumerate such of these mercies as would be instructive to souls. This chapter brings the history of her Life, written by herself, to an end. May it be for the glory ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... close at hand, yet in its unity it seems always infinitely distant, and the difference of angle at which it is seen in India and in Minnesota is almost inappreciable. Moreover, a rooted discontent seems always to underlie all great poetry, if it be not even the motive of it. The Iliad and the Odyssey paint manners that are only here and there incidentally true to the actual, but which in their larger truth had either never existed or had long since passed away. Had Dante's scope been narrowed to contemporary ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... "The motive," cried Tom, "that may be easily explained; and I doubt not but you will find, although it may at present appear a little mysterious, Sparkle will be fully able to shew cause and produce effect. He is however a man of honour and of property, and most likely we may by this time congratulate ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... asking. Some unusually powerful motive must have influenced him, we may be sure, and that I hope we may still ascertain. It will be the first step towards detecting the authors ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... Great Britain, almost without exception, applauded the conduct of the Council, and proved by their comments that they understood its motive, and sympathised with the feelings of Ulster. The Saturday Review expressed the general view when ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... go back to Germany and eat humble pie. Whatever the audience may have felt about these reflections on the conduct of England, they must at least have been irritated by the fantastic improbability of the girl's motive. Very fortunately at this juncture the voice of the paper-boy is heard in the street conveying the thrilling news of our tardy entry into the quarrel; and a glad Margaret, having recovered her respect for her native land, consents to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... no plea, even what arbitrary power could construe into such, might be taken for continuing our imprisonment; but the arrival of letters thus sent being exceedingly problematical, and my hope of liberation from general De Caen having disappeared, the motive for this forbearance had ceased to exist. An account was therefore written to the secretary of the Admiralty of my arrival, reception, and treatment in Mauritius, inclosing copies of all the letters written or received; ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... carpenters, shop-girls and domestic servants, found the Room a pleasant trysting-place, and were more or less superficially induced to accept salvation as it was offered to them in my Father's searching addresses. My Father was very shrewd in dealing with mere curiosity or idle motive, and sharply packed off any youths who simply came to make eyes at the girls, or any 'maids' whose only object was to display their new bonnet-strings. But he was powerless against a temporary sincerity, the simulacrum ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... civilised society can, in all ordinary cases, judge tolerably well how they ought to act: but without a future state, or, which is the same thing, without credited evidence of that state, they want a motive to their duty; they want at least strength of motive sufficient to bear up against the force of passion, and the temptation of present advantage. Their rules want authority. The most important service that can be rendered to human ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... in its idea is the divinest of earthy employments has necessarily come to be also a profession, a line of life, with its routine, its commonplace, its poverty and deterioration of motive, its coarseness of feeling. It cannot but be so. It is part of the conditions of our mortality. Even earnest purpose, even zealous and laborious service, cannot alone save from the lowered tone and dulness of spirit which are our insensible but universal and inveterate ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... kingdom of God is within us. Every gracious motive, every noble, just, and merciful instinct within us, is a sign to us that the kingdom of God is come to us; that we are not as the brutes which perish; not as the heathen who are too often past feeling, ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... In motive e'er is found the sin; Let that to God be true, And he the Judge's smile will win, And ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... You have your choice. You can't tell me anything about Holcroft; I've known him since he was a boy. He doesn't want your girl. She ran away to him, didn't you?" to Jane, who nodded. "But he's willing to take her, to teach her something and give her a chance. His motive is pure kindness, and he ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... facing the eastern coast of China, a lurking desire to find a possible connection between the inhabitants of both continents on that side is readily explicable. But Father Mendoza had still another motive. The three monks which Chamuscado had left in New Mexico had sacrificed their lives in an attempt to convert the natives. They were martyrs of their faith, hence glories of their order, and the Franciscan author could not refrain from commemorating ...
— Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction • Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier
... of Force. A field of force is pictured as made up of lines of force; a conductor swept through the field is pictured as cutting these lines. By so doing it produces potential difference or electro-motive force in itself with a current, if the conductor is part of ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... unimportant. He was occupied with the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of life, and the materials with which he worked seemed to make preoccupation with pigments and words very trivial. Lawson had served his turn. Philip's friendship with him had been a motive in the design he was elaborating: it was merely sentimental to ignore the fact that the painter was of no ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... their motive in following us? was it vengeance, or a despairing hope of being saved? Perhaps both,—but no matter which, there were enough of them to overpower the white men by sheer strength; and, once they succeeded in reaching us, it was not likely they would fail to avenge themselves for the wrongs ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... of odds. The fine arts, too—I would it were otherwise—have their professors amongst this sordid train. The poor poet, half ashamed, in spite of habit, of the part which he is about to perform, and abashed by consciousness at once of his base motive and his shabby black coat, lurks in yonder corner for the favourable moment to offer his dedication. Much better attired, the architect presents his splendid vision of front and wings, and designs a palace, the expense of which may transfer his employer to a ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... that I am older I cannot understand why I uttered those words, what was my motive in that joke. . ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... myself from myself (oh, that cursed selfishness!) has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all; and publishing is also the continuance of the same object, by the action it affords to the mind, which ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... reward curiosity,' said she, in the same measured tone; then, after a moment, she added, 'I'm sure I never sought to ascribe some hidden motive to you. When you left my plants leafless, I was quite content to believe that you ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... noble spirit in Thomas, which we would do well to emulate. It is the true soldier spirit. Its devotion to Christ is absolute, and its following unconditional. It has only one motive,—love; and one rule,—obedience. It is not influenced by any question of consequences; but though it be to certain death, it hesitates not. This is the kind of discipleship which the Master demands. He who loves father or mother more than him is not worthy of him. He who hates not his own ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... his perfecto, the end of which he bit off with strong white teeth, and smiled. You certainly had to hand it to these Chinks. Picked up the photograph, looked at it, handed it back, and never batted an eye! The act was as clear as daylight, but the motive was as profoundly mysterious as the race itself. He hadn't patrolled old Pell Street as a plain clothes man without getting a glimmer of the ancient truth that East is East and West is West. He would have some sport with Mr. Ah Cum ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... ladies, their excitement was great. The doors were thin, and they had heard every word of the conversation. With Mrs. Willoughby there was but one opinion as to the Baron's motive: she thought he had come to get a peep at Minnie, and also to frighten them back to Rome by silly stories. His signal failure afforded her great triumph. Minnie, as usual, sympathized with him, but said nothing. As for Ethel, the sudden arrival of Lord Hawbury was overwhelming, and brought ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... San Francisco is the first, though it will not be the last, to subject its architecture to a definite artistic motive. How this came about it is the object of the present book to tell,—how the Exposition was planned as an appropriate expression of America's joy in the completion of the Canal, and how its structures, commemorating the peaceful meeting of the nations through that great waterway, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... appropriate it to the pious purposes of the Moorish war. But, far from being blinded by their sophistry, she suffered the law to take its course, and, in order to place her conduct above every suspicion of a mercenary motive, allowed his estates, which might legally have been confiscated to the crown, to descend to his natural heirs. Nothing contributed more to re-establish the supremacy of law in this reign, than the certainty ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... power to please, but who is no longer young, whose face is disfigured, and whose person, altogether, has nothing agreeable in it?' 'But,' answered the Emperor, ——- is attached to me; and though he is not your friend, the postscript sufficiently explains the motive of the confidence he places in you.' The following words were, in fact, written at the bottom of the letter: 'I do not think you ought to mention the truth to the Emperor, but make whatever use of it you think proper.' I persisted, however, in maintaining that the letter was a counterfeit; and the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... which makes men into parts of a machine is not likely to improve them as men. When they have no love for their work and no hope of reward, and do not even speak the same language, the one motive which can be depended upon to keep them going is fear. The whip of the overseer bred festering, burning hatred, but it kept the sweeps from breaking their monotonous unceasing motion. If the voyage were quick, the profits were the greater, and no ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... own motive for asking you to luncheon today," she began, in that steady downright way of speaking that was peculiar to her. "I wanted to have a word with you privately. My niece Regina—don't be surprised at my calling her my niece, when you have heard Mr. Farnaby call ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... for she was always delighted to be asked to relate her dreams and the warnings she received of coming woe. Phoebe, of course, was well aware of this, and it was partially because of it that she asked the question; but the strongest motive power that moved her was that she herself was a strong believer in the supernatural. And though men will not acknowledge it, or rarely do so, nevertheless all are more or less influenced by a certain undefined and shadowy belief in the supernatural, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... butchered in cold blood in a single year within a circuit of ten miles from your own door! Two of these unhappy victims were a couple of lonely women, apparently living together in their poverty, gashed and battered in the dead of the night, and left in their blood, stripped of their little all. The motive, too, for all this horrible housebreaking and bloodshed, being a lump of cheese or a side of bacon, and the shuddering creatures cowering in the corner of a hovel, being too paralyzed with terror to utter a cry, and never dreaming of making resistance ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... in her hands the fate of her race—of the Hellenic, the nobler world, threatened by the barbarian, the baser world. She dies, to live. It's the motive of all great ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Faraday had directly hitched the wheels of industry. Not only was it now possible to convert mechanical energy into electricity cheaply and in illimitable quantities, but electricity at once showed its ubiquitous availability as a motive power. Boats were propelled by it, cars were hauled, and even papers printed. Electroplating became an art, and telegraphy sprang into active being on ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... astounding discovery that things that had all his life formed the basis of his thinking were to Ike and his fellows not so much unimportant as irrelevant; and as for the great spiritual verities which lay at the root of all Shock's mental and, indeed, physical activities, furnishing motive and determining direction, these to Ike were quite remote from all practical living. What had God to do with rounding up cattle, or broncho-busting, or horse-trading? True, the elemental virtues of justice, truth, charity, and loyalty were as potent over Ike as over Shock, but ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... "Do you see that?" I said to the coachman. "I see," was his short answer. He was awake, yet he waited longer than seemed prudent; for the horses of our audacious opponent had a disagreeable air of freshness and power. But his motive was loyal; his wish was that the Birmingham conceit should be full-blown before he froze it. When that seemed ripe, he unloosed, or, to speak by a stronger image, he sprang his known resources, he slipped our royal horses like cheetas, or hunting leopards, after ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... not visited the mother country for nearly a decade, so that when he learned I had recently been in Holland he was pathetically eager to hear the gossip of the homeland. For an hour I lounged in a Cantonese chair beneath the leisurely swinging punkah—the motive power for the punkah being provided by a native on the verandah outside, who mechanically pulled the cord even while he slept—and chatted of homely things: of a restaurant which we both knew on the Dam in Amsterdam, of bathing on the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... her eyes and looked at Butscha. It was a piercing and questioning glance; for she shared Dumay's suspicion of Butscha's motive. ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... intelligence—and they were most of them unusually intelligent and alert, if demeanour and utterances might be taken as criterion—should adopt any such elaborate machinery of mystification and duplicity in order to gain an introduction to the Chateau de Montalais. With what possible motive...? ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... to say,' continued Macer. 'I will only ask you whether you must not judge that to be a very powerful principle of some kind that drew me up out of that foul pit into which I was fallen, and made me what I am now? Which of you now feels that he has motive strong enough to work out such a deliverance for him? What help in this way do you receive from your priests, if perchance you ever apply to them? What book of instructions concerning the will of the gods have you, to which you can go at any time and all times? Only believe as I do, Romans, and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... walked back to his barracks he pondered over the meaning of the day's development. For one thing, theft of the transistors put a new light on the Earthman's activities. It added a profit motive to whatever else motivated the ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... from which the particulars of his death were obtained, it was reported that the natives who perpetrated the deed were influenced by no other motive than curiosity to ascertain if they had power to kill a white man. But we must be careful in giving credit to this, for it is much more probable that the cruelties exercised by the sealers towards the blacks along the south coast, may have instigated the latter to take ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... studying the man. He believed he could see honesty in his thin sallow face, but hesitated to say anything about the real motive that influenced himself and chum to stop in order to ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... please," answered Calvin, who then began to explain the motive and reasons of his disguise. "And would you not do better to return to Noyon and to God?" asked the canon, looking at him sadly. Calvin was a moment silent, then, taking the priest's hand—"Thank you," said he, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... same mental states incipiently aroused, when our motor-mechanism half automatically steers us away from the selfish act, without our consciously formulating a specific name for the new impulse or recognizing any articulate motive, we are apt to give this mental push the more general name of conscience. So if we consciously reckon up, balance advantages, and decide on the less inviting act in recognition of its really greater worth to us, we say we act from prudence or insight, we are reasonable ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... visit to Sherm was for the mere purpose of visiting the tomb of the saint. I had assigned this motive to Ayd, who was himself a Mezeine, telling him that I had made a vow to thank the saint for his protection in our encounter with the robbers; Ayd would otherwise have been much astonished at my proceeding to this distance without any plausible object. The nearest ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... infinite assurance of his power, implicit in everything that he had said to her, must now arise in her memory, and give the lie to his present confession of powerlessness. She would not believe him, and disbelieving him, she would seek a motive for the words that she would deem untrue. And that motive she would not find far to seek. She would account his present attitude the consummation of a miserable subterfuge by which he sought to win her confidence ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... state to you these opinions of mine, that you might know that I think the Translation of the "Faust" a task demanding (from me, I mean), no ordinary efforts—and why? This—that it is painful, very painful, and even odious to me, to attempt anything of a literary nature, with any motive of pecuniary advantage; but that I bow to the all-wise Providence, which has made me a poor man, and therefore compelled me by other duties inspiring feelings, to bring even my Intellect to the Market. And the finale ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... thou wish a step-brother to get up with his life! How canst thou, forsaking Bhima whose strength is equal to that of ten thousand elephants, wish Nakula to live? People said that this Bhima was dear to thee. From what motive then dost thou wish a step-brother to revive? Forsaking Arjuna the might of whose arm is worshipped by all the sons of Pandu, why dost thou wish Nakula to revive?' Yudhishthira said,—'If virtue is sacrificed, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... get himself out of a disastrous speculation," replied Carrados, answering the question. "If there was another motive—or at least an incentive—which I suspect, doubtless we shall hear ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... she holds a little scarf, which serves to give a motive to the action of the arms and head. The movement in this figure, which admits of great variety, no two performers being at all alike in it, is somewhat stronger than in the first. The undulation, too, instead of dying away gradually ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... corner, it reverses the process and from dark to light begins gradating light to dark, ending somewhat sharply against the sky in the rock form to the left. The rich play of tone that is introduced in the trees and ground, &c., blinds one at first to the perception of this larger tone motive, but without it the rich variety would not hold together. Roughly speaking the whole of this dark frame of tones from the accented point of the trees at the top to the mass of the rock on the left, may be said to gradate away into the distance; ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... place all these activities have a common motive which is preparation for a fuller life for the individual, not only in her personal, but in her social relations. It is believed that the habits formed and the concrete information acquired in these activities both contribute to the girls being ready to meet intelligently ...
— Girl Scouts - Their Works, Ways and Plays • Unknown
... serious mistake of supposing that in order to get on the good side of boys we must make their work easy. Football is not easy, but it is extremely popular! It is the motive rather than the intrinsic difficulty of the task that makes the difference. The thing needed by the choir director is a combination of firmness (but not crossness) with the play spirit. Let him give definite directions, and let ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... mirror. "I'm sunburnt enough to look like a Sikh." And a feeling of bitter resentment was growing against him now, stronger than I had felt before, knowing as I did that in spite of his kindness, and the friendly feeling he professed, he was moved by the strong motive of making me his ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... there see reduced to practice not only all the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other places new ones planted, where there were none before. Their principal motive for this is the convenience of carriage, that their timber may be either near their towns or growing on the banks of the sea, or of some rivers, so as to be floated to them; for it is a harder work ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... replied the Atlantean, "comes from the earth. We compress it many times, then feed it into our retortii. Without the heat of Mother Earth and our flame suns we would all perish. Steam is our motive power, our ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... said Smith, grinning a little. Norman wished he had. But he had not a hundred dollars of his own, and he had scruples—faint, and yet scruples, or rather alarms—at the thought of risking his employer's money on a wager. While he was weighing motive against motive, Smith bet again, and again, to Norman's vexation, selected a card that was so obviously wrong that Norman thought it a pity that so near-sighted a man should bet and lose. He wished he had a hundred dollars of his own and—There, Smith was betting again. This ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Bronchitis, Catarrh, Asthma and all throat and Lung Affections, also a positive and radical cure for Nervous Debility and all Nervous Complaints, after having tested its wonderful curative powers in thousands of cases, has felt it his duty to make it known to his suffering fellows. Actuated by this motive and a desire to relieve human suffering, I will send free of charge, to all who desire it, this recipe, in German, French, or English, with full directions for preparing and using. Sent by mail by addressing with stamp, naming this paper. W. A. NOYES, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... gainer, by all things convertible into tribute, whatever may be the temper or intention of the officers, either as towards the cause or towards himself. He may say to them, I am more pleased by what you are actually doing, be the motive what it will, in advancement of the object to which I am devoted, than it is possible for you to aggrieve me by letting me see that you would not be sorry for the frustration of my schemes and exertions for its service; or even by betraying, though I should lament ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... paragraphs in the few newspapers that filled a vacant corner by labeling him crank and long-haired prophet; even the silence that greeted his pamphlets, his letters to the Press, and all the rest, hurt him for others rather than for himself. His pain was altruistic, never personal. His dream and motive, his huge, unwieldy compassion, his genuine love for humanity, all were big ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... chemical terms, chlorine gas is formed. It is one of the most poisonous and suffocating of all gases. That is the real danger in submarine boats—suffocation from chlorine. It will remain so until we get a better form of motive power, liquid or compressed air, perhaps. And here"—Ross led them to a valve wheel amidships—"as though to invite such disaster, they've given us ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy shade,—she would go over into the Ware garden. With all this, there was no ulterior motive. She had seen the man who lived in the house, and she admired him as one from afar, but she was a girl innocent not only in fact, but in dreams. Of course she had thought of a possible lover and husband, and that some day he might come, and she resented ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... of the Pantheon," she said to herself; and she continued to regret her sister's folly, even though the latter assured her that she had often heard the relics in question most satisfactorily described by Mr. Penniman. Mrs. Penniman was perfectly aware that her brother's motive in undertaking a foreign tour was to lay a trap for Catherine's constancy; and she imparted this conviction very ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... motive for holding out, as they had taken steps to convey word of their difficulty to Colvile and to Methuen. The former continued his march to Heilbron, and it is hard to blame him for doing so, but Methuen on hearing the message, which was conveyed to him at great personal peril by Corporal ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... terrible day when a husband fails to explain to himself the motive of some action of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... playing assumed a deeper interest; here was something which she could not yet fathom. She saw what influence had driven him to her, against his inclination, but his motive for seeming to obey, while dreading success, was a puzzle. Singularly enough, a slight feeling of commiseration began to soften her previous contempt, and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... we were out on the moor,' grumbled her husband. 'I am sick to death of this ill-advised, unreasonable journey. I am at a loss to imagine your motive in bringing me here. You must have ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... coffee; Tremerello left me, and I sat down to write. Did I do right? was the motive really approved by God? Was it not rather the triumph of my natural courage, of my preference of that which pleased me, instead of obeying the call for painful sacrifices. Mingled with this was a proud complacency, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... heroic poem, of which Augustus should be the hero. As the application to Propertius cannot have taken place until after Augustus had been amply celebrated by the superior abilities of Virgil and Horace, there seems to be some reason for ascribing Mecaenas's request to a political motive. Caius and Lucius, the emperor's grandsons by his daughter Julia, were still living, and both young. As one of them, doubtless, was intended to succeed to the government of the empire, prudence justified the adoption of every expedient that might tend to secure a quiet succession ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... escape? Separate as soon as possible, and scatter in all directions, make their way to small, isolated places, change their appearance as much as possible, and each shift for himself. To remain together increases the risk of capture for each and all. There must be some powerful motive to make them take such risks. Such men risk nothing except for money. But there are no banks here to be looted, no strangers to be waylaid in dark alleys, not even a blind beggar to steal ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... in bringing the trade of the west to different points on the Atlantic, he expressed unequivocally the opinion that the rivers of Virginia afforded a more convenient and a more direct course than could be found elsewhere for that rich and increasing commerce. This was strongly urged as a motive for immediately commencing the work. But the rivers of the Atlantic constituted only a part of the great plan he contemplated. He suggested the appointment of commissioners who should, after an accurate examination of the James and the Potomac, search out the nearest and best portages between ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... necessary means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to whose flight was the same want of motive power ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The motive which determined Snofrui's choice of Medum as a site, is unknown to us: perhaps he dwelt in that city of Heracleopolis, which in course of time frequently became the favourite residence of the kings; perhaps he improvised for himself a city in ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his motive what it might, he cracked, on every stitch of canvas that the brigantine would bear, as soon as the strength of the squall had sufficiently abated to permit of his bringing her to the wind, making sail from time to time as the wind further dwindled, until he had her ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... presently the Justice becomes Raleigh, speaking in his own person. The book was written in the summer of 1615, a few months after the suppression of the History of the World, and by a curious misconstruction of motive was intended to remove from the King's mind the unpleasant impression caused by those parables of Ahab and of Ninias. It had, however, as we shall see, the very opposite result. The preface to the King expresses an ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... his mouth. Possibly he smiled. Possibly he was malevolently disposed. At all events, whatever his motive or his humor, he did something with his mouth, and straightway his two rows of teeth gleamed forth, his eyes changed their position and also their hue, and the hollows in his cheeks ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... have been the desire of the first settlers to form a community where they could live apart, maintain their form of religion and possess land fertile and rich. The Quakers are always shrewd as to economic affairs, and the business motive is never lost sight of in the spiritual inner light. In choosing Quaker Hill soil they selected ground which after one hundred and sixty-seven years is the richest in the region, sustains the best dairies, and ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... instruction of both parents and become socialized for the larger and later responsibilities of the social order. In the altruism thus developed lie the roots of morals and religion. It is well agreed that the essence of each is the right motive to conduct. Love to men and to God is an accepted definition of religion, and ethics is grounded on that principle. Love is the ruling principle of the monogamic family; from the narrower domestic circle it extends to the community and ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... undergone at Basterga's hands, of the shame-compelling taunts to which she had been forced to listen, of the loathed touch she had been forced to bear. If there was aught in her mind beyond this, any motive deeper or more divine, he did not perceive it; enough, that he saw that she wavered, and he ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... know—at first. Now I realize it will require a higher motive to influence you; not love of ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... campaign. He lived a quiet, happy, and useful life in London, where he was the friend and unwearied helper of all who needed help. He found his chief interests in books and flowers, and in giving others pleasure. Of rare unselfishness and sweet nature, single in mind and motive, fearing God and knowing no other fear, he was regarded by a large number of people with admiring affection. He met his death by a fall on the frosty pavement at his door, in the very act of doing a kindness. An interesting sketch of Sir George Yule's Indian career, by one who ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... counted on carrying all before her by sheer force of her powers of self-assertion and the name of the Patriotic Daughters of America. But the commanding general was the most impassive of men, gifted with a keen though little suspected sense of humor, and no little judgment in estimating motive and character. He actually enjoyed the first call made by Miss Perkins, suggested her coming again on the morrow, and summoned his chief surgeon and his provost marshal, another keen humorist, to be present at the interview. It has been asserted ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... husband, with a strange mixture of satisfaction and anger in his hard tones. "I have been expecting some such foolery as this for some time, and I am not blinded to the motive behind it. What do you care about those devils of Indian savages? What does Horace Spotswood care about them? Just as little! Enough, and too much, of my money has gone already to the prolonging of their worthless lives. If that graceless cub chooses to go on wasting money ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... what am I to attribute this pleasure, Lady Amaranth? I do not presume to think that you have come here without some other motive than that of a mere desire to see me. I do not suppose that even you pretend that since the contretemps of Tuesday night at the Duchess of Barncastle's ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... females to approach this spot; but it was a different motive that led the youth thither. Elizabeth examined the light ashen timbers and thin bark covering of the canoe, in admiration of its neat but simple execution, and with wonder that any human being could he so daring as to trust his life in so frail a vessel. But the youth explained ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... infidelity on the other. And more than all, such a man would see as clear as light, that where every class is occupied in getting money, and no class in spending it, there will neither be leisure for worshipping the theory of honesty, nor motive strong enough to put its restrictive doctrine in practice. Where every man is engaged in driving hard bargains with his fellows, where is the honoured class to be found into which gentleman-like feelings, principles, and practice, are necessary as ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... against the Holy Ghost, we understand sin committed through certain malice, this means either that the blasphemy itself against the Holy Ghost is unpardonable, i.e. not easily pardonable, or that such a sin does not contain in itself any motive for pardon, or that for such a sin a man is punished both in this and in the next world, as we explained in the Second Part (III, Q. 14, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... true and scriptural as it is beautiful. It is just what God sees that we need, and furnishes us with the most constraining motive to serve him, and to deny ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... respecting the will, as well as the other powers of the mind, and every thing else in the constitution of nature; and consequently that it is never determined without some real or apparent cause foreign to itself, i. e., without some motive of choice; or that motives influence us in some definite and invariable manner, so that every volition, or choice, is constantly regulated and determined by what precedes it; and this constant determination of mind, according to the motives presented to it, is what is meant ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... interested in living—the necessity of the actual personal things we all are daily trying to do, is a necessity so much more splendid and tragic, so much more vivid, personal and immediate, so much more adapted to a high and exhilarating motive and to a noble common desire than the rather rudimentary showy stupid necessity the Germans thrust upon us could ever dream of being, that it is hard to understand the way in which the leaders of the Red Cross in the supreme critical moment when the ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... love for ecclesiastical terms. On the occurrence of one such term, he pauses thereafter as though mentally he were adding to the term a very thick, a very black, full stop. Yet always he will converse with anyone, and at great length—his probable motive being a desire to leave behind him the reputation of a wise ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... "A motive," said Howard, smiling, "that I am sure will need no apology with you—business! I have acquired a few hundreds, which I wish to invest safely, and I ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... upon occasion, he could fight as well as play: I mean when he either was provoked to it by his equals, or tempted to it by the hopes of defrauding of their little property those who he knew had neither strength enough nor courage to resist him. But whatever was his motive either for beginning or suffering himself to be drawn into an engagement, he was very far from confining himself to any rules of honour, or to the established laws of war; for instead of boxing fairly, he would kick, pull hair, bite, and scratch most unmercifully, and never fail to take ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... hunter in six seconds; for the person who had thus suddenly appeared before him allowed no more time to elapse before setting off from the spot, and in such haste that the hunter thought he must be retreating in affright. And yet there was no sign of fear accompanying the act. Some other motive must have urged him ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... persuasion can induce the ryots to keep that which is picked in the morning from that which is gathered in the heat of the day. He also suggests that the cotton should be irrigated during its growth, and alleges as a motive for doing this, that in Egypt and Peru no good cotton can be grown without resorting to it. But the cases are not exactly parallel, inasmuch as no rain falls in either of these countries, whilst rain is most abundant in India, eighty or ninety inches of rain sometimes ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... noble sacrifice, Charles," continued Captain Sedley with much enthusiasm. "If from a worthy motive we sacrifice our inclinations for the good of others, we are always sure of finding our reward—indeed, the act ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... out of their way to avoid the Sand farm as if it were holy ground. If he did not care to take the chance of seeing his own offspring occasionally, he could move his farm elsewhere. They two had done nothing to be shamed into running away, that was true enough. Perhaps there was some ulterior motive behind the child's obstinacy? Maren was not the one to oppose Providence—still less if it lent ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... incarnations you have long chewed and rechewed, and in the evening you will swallow some radishes without any oil. Well, my dear friend, in accomplishing these acts, so different apparently, we are both obeying the same sentiment, the only motive for all human actions; we are both seeking our own pleasure, and striving to attain the same end—happiness, the impossible happiness. It would be folly on my part to say you were wrong, dear friend, even though I think myself in ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... the common accusation against the Medici as a family, that they had but one motive—mercenary ambition and self-aggrandisement—is true, the fact remains that the crown did not reach their brows until one hundred and seventy years from the first appearance of old Giovanni di Bicci in Florentine affairs. The statue of Cosimo ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... as, indeed, it is difficult to separate the two that are united. If persons reunited after separation approach one another again, their behaviour cannot be affectionate. No servant is to be seen who is moved (in what he does) by only the desire of benefiting his master. Service proceeds from the motive of doing good to the master as also one's own self. All acts are undertaken from selfish motives. Unselfish acts or motives are very rare. Those kings whose hearts are restless and unquiet cannot acquire a true knowledge of men. Only one in a hundred can be found who ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... rather discomfited at a query so pointed, and so directly penetrating the proud British reserve about monetary circumstances; but Robert, knowing that the motive was kind-hearted, and the manner just that of a straightforward unconventional settler, replied, 'You are nearly right, Mr. Holt; our capital in cash is very small; but I hope stout bodies and stout hearts ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... [The motive for Sir Edward Montagu's so suddenly altering his intended title is not explained; probably, the change was adopted as a compliment to the town of Sandwich, off which the Fleet was lying before it sailed to bring Charles from Scheveling. Montagu had ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... censure is interjected among her details with a freedom that we could not have anticipated. That she should have resented his heartless repudiation of the companion of all his struggles and fortunes, is natural, and perhaps just; but that she should have revenged the wrong, if indeed that be the motive, by depreciating him seems out of character with the Josephine of our imaginations. She describes him as vain, cruel, often weak, and at times abjectly cowardly. She dwells with great fullness upon his crimes, and passes rapidly and coldly ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... humbled me. No man can be degraded by another; it must be his own act: and you have degraded yourself, not me. My error is in having, for a moment, yielded to the impulse of passion. If you think I fear you, continue to think so; till I can shew my forbearance is from a better motive. Cowardice might make me kill you; but true courage will teach me calmly to hear the world call me coward, rather than commit an act so wicked, so abhorred, as that of taking or throwing away life. I wished to seek your friendship; ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... find it," he said nonchalantly, with an air that expressed pride at his own astuteness. But it did not impress Craven. He looked at him keenly, knowing that he was lying but not understanding the motive and too tired to try and understand. He felt giddy and his head was aching violently—for a moment everything seemed to swim before his eyes and he caught blindly at the verandah rail. But the sensation passed quickly and he pulled ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull |
