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Motive: Quotations from Burning Words

It is not the motive, properly speaking, that determines the working of the will; but it is the will that imparts strength to the motive. As Coleridge says: “It is the man that makes the motive, and not the motive the man.”— JAMES MCCosH

In the eye of that Supreme Being to whom our whole internal frame is uncovered, dispositions hold the place of actions.— BLAIR

In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail.— W. E. CHANNING