#la

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim. ↗

— George Washington

#motivational

How you look at it is pretty much how you'll see it ↗

— Rasheed Ogunlaru

#conditioning #cultural-differences #foresight #hindsight #motivational-quotes

She kept up her compliments, and I kept up my determination to deserve them or die. ↗

— Mark Twain

#positive-motivation #motivational

If you are always saying I'll do it to tomorrow, than your tomorrow will than turn into another day and so on, and so, etc. etc. ↗

— Victoria Addino

#lazyness #procrastination #motivational

A man may plant a tree for a number of reasons. Perhaps he likes trees. Perhaps he wants shelter. Or perhaps he knows that someday he may need the firewood. ↗

— Joanne Harris

#motive #planning #purpose #strategy #motivational

Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them. ↗

— Scarlett Thomas

#heroes #villains #writing #motivational

Fear no one except the One. ↗

— Habeeb Akande

#fear-of-god #god #insprirational #islam #motivational

One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#politics #politics-language #totalitarianism #motivational

Coleridge’s description of Iago’s actions as "motiveless malignancy" applies in some degree to all the Shakespearian villains. The adjective motiveless means, firstly, that the tangible gains, if any, are clearly not the principal motive, and, secondly, that the motive is not the desire for personal revenge upon another for a personal injury. Iago himself proffers two reasons for wishing to injure Othello and Cassio. He tells Roderigo that, in appointing Cassio to be his lieutenant, Othello has treated him unjustly, in which conversation he talks like the conventional Elizabethan malcontent. In his soliloquies with himself, he refers to his suspicion that both Othello and Cassio have made him a cuckold, and here he talks like the conventional jealous husband who desires revenge. But there are, I believe, insuperable objections to taking these reasons, as some critics have done, at their face value. ↗

— W.H. Auden

#shakespeare #villains #motivational

A brick and a blanket can be used as reasons to go on searching, when you’ve found all the obvious applications for the brick and the blanket—and immediately discarded them—but you lost the motivation to keep thinking, and you’ve lost hope that you will discover any new uses for them. Thus the brick and the blanket become symbols for creativity and perseverance. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#brick-and-blanket-iq-test #brick-and-blanket-responses #brick-and-blanket-test #brick-and-blanket-uses #funny