A man acting for himself may indulge his own caprices, and consider what is convenient or agreeable to himself, as well as what is strictly prudent, and his prudential motives cannot afterwards be separated from the others which may have governed him. Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale Attorney-General v. Kerr (1840)
See a person's means … Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character? Confucius
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
We all know this type of behavior, where the interest of the performer is in himself and not in the work. One who has thoroughly prepared for a public performance of some sort, may break down in the performance because of inability to get away from the desire to do his best in the presence of all these spectators, this self-consciousness making impossible a direct application of his energies to the work in hand. Robert S. Woodworth Dynamic Psychology (1918)
Men's minds are as variant as their faces. Where the motives of their actions are pure, the operation of the former is no more to be imputed to them as a crime, than the appearance of the latter; for both, being the work of nature, are alike unavoidable. George Washington
The rule of our law is that the immediate cause, the causa proxima, and not the remote cause, is to be looked at: for, as Lord Bacon says: "It were infinite for the law to judge the causes of causes and their impulsions one of another; therefore it contenteth itself with the immediate cause, and judgeth of acts by that, without looking to any further degree." Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn Sneesby v. Lancashire and Yorkshire Rail. Co (1874)
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. William Ellery Channing Attributed Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)