Psychology

"At the bottom of the homepage is this [disclaimer] … But that hasn't stopped Beck's lawyers from trying to shut down the site -- resulting in more blowback and another manifestation of the dreaded Streisand Effect!"

"The inability to erase information has already taken on a name: the Streisand Effect."

"A phenomenon dubbed the Streisand Effect has already sparked attention. Similar to the scarcity principle, when demands are made to remove videos or documents on the Web, hits for those materials increase dramatically. It seems a "forbidden fruit" is all the more attractive."

"No matter how effective your rebuttal may seem to be to you, a response will "bump" the problem into greater prominence and relevance in the search engine results, which then turns your headache into a migraine. This is doubly dangerous since "bumping" the negative information potentially introduces the "Streisand Effect" into the equation, which is something to avoid if at all possible. It is commonly defined as a phenomenon in which an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information on the web backfires, causing greater publicity."

"To enter into the hearts of men belongs to him who can explore the human heart."

"It was by no means uncommon, where the legislature had a particular object in view in making a particular statute, to extend the enactments beyond the immediate and original object, and apply it to other matter suggested by it."

"I think the motives of the legislature in passing an Act of Parliament are to be taken to be proper motives."

"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.""

"Motives are very often immaterial with reference to the manner of disposing of a suit. It has been said by an eminent Judge, that if you were to look into motives of suitors, Courts of justice would not sit above a month in the year, and would have little to do. Of course there are, in numerous instances, motives for litigation which, if they could be looked into, would prevent a Court of justice from interfering. But generally I agree that it is not the rule so to regard them."

"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."

"Men's feelings are as different as their faces."

"Every man has a right to keep his own sentiments if he pleases."

"The plaintiff cannot dive into the secret recesses of his (the defendant's) heart."

"He revealeth the deep and secret things, he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him."

". . . The fallacious use of the principle that you cannot look into a man's mind. It is said you cannot do that: therefore what follows? It is said that you are to have fixed rules to tell you that he must have meant something, one way or the other, when certain exterior phenomena arise. The answer is that there is no such thing as an absolute criterion which gives you certain index to a man's mind. There is nothing outside his mind which is an absolute indication of what is going on inside. So far from saying that you cannot look into a man's mind, you must look into it, if you are going to find fraud against him: and unless you think you see what must have been in his mind, you cannot find him guilty of fraud."

"It is not for human judgment to dive into the heart of man, to know whether his intentions are good or evil."

"It is impossible to dive into the secret recesses of a man's heart."

"There is no entering into the secret thoughts of a man's heart."

"We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts."

"What passes in the mind of man is not scrutable by any human tribunal; it is only to be collected from his acts."

"Motives do not concern me; they are a dangerous subject with which to deal."

"The motive that originally induced him to go in for this event may very well have been a desire to distinguish himself; but this motive has to drop out of sight or else by its distraction spoil the performance. It is not true, then, that the motive that initiates a given activity furnishes the motive force for the whole activity; it simply leads the performer up to the act, but the motive force for the act itself must be inherent."

"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."

"As a general proposition, we may say that the drive that carries forward any activity, when it is running freely and effectively, is inherent In that activity. It is only when an activity is running by its own drive that it can run thus freely and effectively; for as long as it is being driven by some extrinsic motive, it is subject to the distraction of that motive."

"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."

"For there's nothing we read of in torture's inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce, with the best of intentions."

"A good intention clothes itself with sudden power."

"What makes life dreary is the want of motive."

"Iago's soliloquy—the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful it is!"

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

"The plea of good intentions is not one that can be allowed to have much weight in passing historical judgment upon a man whose wrong-headedness and distorted way of looking at things produced, or helped to produce, such incalculable evil; there is a wide political applicability in the remark attributed to a famous Texan, to the effect that he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him on purpose, but that he would surely never forgive one who did so accidentally."

"The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate."

"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.""

"Anybody who says that we understand human motivation, that we can formulate simple and clear reasons for why people what they do, is either lying or naïve."

"The human mind is always inexorable in demanding a motive for all human actions. It is only himself that each man permits to act without one, and avails himself of the privilege with astonishing frequency."

"There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine."

"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."

"I believe with Schopenhauer that one of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is to escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from personal life into the world of objective perception and thought; this desire may be compared with the townsman's irresistible longing to escape from his noisy, cramped surroundings into the silence of high mountains, where the eye ranges freely through the still, pure air and fondly traces out the restful contours apparently built for eternity. ... Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligible picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experience, and thus to overcome it. That is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion. Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way the peace and security which he cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience."

"Motivation is a battle for the heart, not just an appeal to the mind. Passion is always an expression of the soul."

"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."

"See a person's means … Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character?"

"Bhikkhus, the lazy person dwells in suffering, soiled by evil unwholesome states, and great is the personal good that he neglects. But the energetic person dwells happily, secluded from evil unwholesome states, and great is the personal good that he achieves. It is not by the inferior that the supreme is attained; rather, it is by the supreme that the supreme is attained. Bhikkhus, this holy life is a beverage of cream; the Teacher is present. Therefore, bhikkhus, arouse your energy for the attainment of the as-yet-unattained, for the achievement of the as-yet-unachieved, for the realization of the as-yet-unrealized."

"Dreadful will be the day when the world becomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spreads itself over the world. Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is a child of God."

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

"There are two things people want more than sex and money . . . i.e recognition and praise."

"The two most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life."

""Thou shalt not get found out" is not one of God's commandments, and no man can be saved by trying to keep it."

"Convey a libel in a frown, And wink a reputation down!"

"Das Aergste weiss die Welt von mir, und ich Kann sagen, ich bin besser als mein Ruf."

"To be pointed out with the finger."