Motivation
see also Leadership
- The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; ... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.--Alexander Hamilton (The Federalist Papers)
- Everyone who comes within the reach of your knowledge is, as it were, on trial in your mind. It is easy to be an unjust, ignorant, and even a merciless judge. The real character of the actions of others depends in great measure on the motives that prompt them, and these motives are unknown to you.--Lawrence G. Lovasik (The Hidden Power of Kindness)
- A feeling of continuous growth is a wonderful source of motivation and self-confidence.--Brian Tracey (The Treasury of Quotes)
- The greater part of our daily actions are the result of hidden motives which escape our observation.--Gustave le Bon (The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind)
- The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen.--Roy E. Moody
- Hunger, love, vanity, and fear. There are four great motives of human action.--William Graham Sumner (Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals)
- I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it.--Edmund Hillary
- I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.--Stanley Kubrick
- If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn't need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - August 5, 2003)
- If you really want something you can figure out how to make it happen.--Cher
- If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the results.--Gen. George Patton
- I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles.--Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert)
- In all our actions, God considers the intention: whether we act for Him or for some other motive.--St. Maximus the Confessor
- In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate people, I hope, by example--and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to make others feel involved.--Rupert Murdoch
- In my experience there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reason or principles contain it or stand against it.--Jane Smiley (Ordinary Love)
- Inspire yourself and others will be inspired. Motivate yourself and others will be motivated. Develop yourself and others will start to develop themselves. Be an example first and then the world changes around you.--Unknown
- Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.--John Maxwell
- Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner.--Les Brown
- The Light of Lights
Looks always on the motive, not the deed,
The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone.--William Butler Yeats (The Countess Cathleen)
- Motivation comes from thought. Every act we take is preceded by a thought that inspires that act. When we quit thinking, we lose the motivation to act.--Steve Chandler (100 Ways to Motivate Yourself)
- Motivation gets you going and habit get you there. Make motivation a habit and you will get thee more quickly and have more fun on the trip.--Zig Ziglar (Zig Ziglar's Little Book of Big Quotes)
- Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.--Stephen R. Covey
- Motivation is like food for the brain. You cannot get enough in one sitting. It needs continual and regular top up's.--Peter Davies
- Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.--Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.--Zig Ziglar (Zig Ziglar's Little Book of Big Quotes)
- Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.--Jim Ryun
- Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.--Norman R. Augustine
- Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.--Zig Ziglar (Raising Positive Kids in a Negative World)
- One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity...--Edward de Bono (Serious Creativity)
- The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you've just done something as well as you can do it.--Lloyd Dobens
- People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.--Andrew S. Carnegie
- People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs and motives.--Thomas Mann (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
- Praise does wonders for our sense of hearing.--Arnold H. Glasgow (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
- The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.--Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but you must get at a man through his own religion, not through yours.--George Bernard Shaw
- The secret of discipline is motivation. When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.--Sir Alexander Paterson
- Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.--John Akers
- The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.--Keanu Reeves
- The soul that has no established aim loses itself.--Michel de Montaigne ("Of Idleness" Essays)
- Success stems from motivation, effort, and a commitment to excellence.--Anonymous
- There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.--Robert Half
- 'Tis the motive exalts the action; 'Tis the doing, and not the deed.--Margaret Preston
- Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences.--Katherine Whitehorn (Roundabout)
- Virtually everyone needs motivation of some sort, but when you are in love - that is motivation enough, it turns many into poets and painters, it spurs the creativity in you.--Bernard Kelvin Clive
- Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.--Vince Poscente (Invinceable Principles)
- We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action.--Louis L'Amour
- We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it.--Peter Drucker
- We must not inquire too curiously into motives. ... They are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.--George Eliot (Middlemarch)
- We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.-- François de la Rochefoucauld
- We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.--La Rochefoucauld (Maxims)
- What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.--George Eliot
- When people are highly motivated, it's easy to accomplish the impossible. And when they're not, it's impossible to accomplish the easy.--Bob Collings
- Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.--Niccolo Machiavelli
- The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that's when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.--John Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You)
- The word motivation is often confused with manipulation. Motivation occurs when you persuade others to take an action in their own best interests. Manipulation is persuading others to take an action that is primarily for your benefit. --Zig Ziglar
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