All 21 Uses of

motive
in
The Mill on the Floss

For there is nothing more widely misleading than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies on imaginary game.†
Chpt 1.3

motives = reasons for doing something

Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he felt a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolized by the pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's motives for recalling it were entirely admirable.†
Chpt 3.6

Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives, and his mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt without being rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks, and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.†
Chpt 3.7

Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives, and his mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can be prompt without being rash, because their motives run in fixed tracks, and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.†
Chpt 3.7

Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol, and seek their ekstasis or outside standing-ground in gin; but the rest require something that good society calls "enthusiasm," something that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes; something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something, clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves.†
Chpt 4.3

Maggie had an awe of him, against which she struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle.†
Chpt 5.2

It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were so unreasonable, so unchristian!†
Chpt 5.3 *

But there was a surplus of passion in him that made him half independent of justifying motives.†
Chpt 5.3

Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them.†
Chpt 5.5

Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them.†
Chpt 5.5

We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,—for the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives.†
Chpt 6.14

You have been base, deceitful; no motives are strong enough to restrain you.†
Chpt 7.1

The leap of natural longing from under the pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are likely to be forgotten—till the pain has been escaped from.†
Chpt 7.5

Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had determined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity; and there are men whoses brains have not yet been dangerously heated by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest or desires a motive for other men's actions.†
Chpt 3.1

In this fact, indeed, there lay the clenching motive to the purchase of Dorlcote Mill.†
Chpt 3.7

Kenn himself said the other day that he didn't like this plan of making vanity do the work of charity; but just as the British public is not reasonable enough to bear direct taxation, so St. Ogg's has not got force of motive enough to build and endow schools without calling in the force of folly.†
Chpt 6.6

The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly before her.†
Chpt 6.10

He had even devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this agreeable June weather; the headaches which he had constantly been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence were a sufficient ostensible motive.†
Chpt 6.13

But even in its utmost agony—even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire—my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive.†
Chpt 7.3

Definitions:

(1) (motive as in: What is her motive?)
a reason for doing something
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Less commonly, motive can refer to something that causes motion in an inanimate object. Even less commonly, it can refer to a distinctive feature in music, art, or literature.