Elude Quotes

• For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.

  Evelyn Underhill

  Beauty, Elude Us, Attention

  Evelyn Underhill, Dana Greene (1988). “Evelyn Underhill: Modern Guide to the Ancient Quest for the Holy”, p.75, SUNY Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Success is not something you pursue.
  
  What you pursue will elude you; it can be like trying to chase butterflies.
  
  Success is something you attract by the person you become.

  Jim Rohn

  Butterfly, Elude You, Trying

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Feb 08, 2013

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any pointand to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us.

  Blaise Pascal

  Knowledge, Past, Thinking

  Blaise Pascal, W. F. Trotter, T. S. Eliot (2003). “Pensees”, p.19, Courier Corporation

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Happy, Butterfly

  166 Copy quote

• It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Time, Memories, Past

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2009). “The Crack-Up”, p.50, New Directions Publishing

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm certain that most couples expect to find intimacy in marriage, but it somehow eludes them.

  James Dobson

  Marriage, Couple, Intimacy

  4 Copy quote

• It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.

  Norman Maclean

  Friendship, Elude Us, Elude You

  Norman Maclean (2009). “A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition”, p.104, University of Chicago Press

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.

  Norman Maclean

  Love, Inspirational, God

  125 Copy quote

• To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

  Fiona Shaw

  Hard Work, Joy, Noble

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude the barrier of systems.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Believe, Elude Us, Growth

  8 Copy quote

• Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.

  John Tyler

  Elude You, Elude Us, Presidential

  Message to the House, December 18, 1816.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• But, as we have before been led to remark, most of Mr. Darwin's statements elude, by their vagueness and incompleteness, the test of Natural History facts.

  Richard Owen

  Elude Us, Vagueness, Tests

  14 Copy quote

• Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me.

  Jimmy Breslin

  Ties, News, Television

  4 Copy quote

• The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced.

  Andre Gide

  Bores You, Annoyed, Literature

  The journals, 1889-1949. Vol 2. (p. 20), 1956.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the student but a lover courting a fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp?

  William Osler

  Love, Mistress, Fickle

  Sir William Osler (2001). “Osler's "a Way of Life" and Other Addresses, with Commentary and Annotations”, p.337, Duke University Press

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. You can love completely without complete understanding.

  Norman Maclean

  Love, Elude You, Elude Us

  66 Copy quote

• This commitment to truth is something one senses more and more Americans yearning for, just as they are becoming more and more sophisticated at knowing when the truth is being obscured - an irony that seems to elude most of todays elected officials.

  Michael Musto

  Commitment, Knowing, Elude You

  48 Copy quote

• It is rash to intrude upon the piety of others: both the depth and the grace of it elude the stranger.

  George Santayana

  Grace, Depth, Stranger

  George Santayana (1937). “The Works of George Santayana: Dialogues in limbo. Platonism and the spiritual life. A long way round to Nirvana. The prestige of the infinite. Ultimate religion”

  2 Copy quote

  Show source

• Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; / Look up a second time, and, one by one, / You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, / And wonder how they could elude the sight!

  William Wordsworth

  Stars, Light, Sight

  William Wordsworth, Stephen Gill (2000). “The Major Works”, p.369, Oxford University Press, USA

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you want something, it will elude you. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail.

  Anna Quindlen

  Elude You, Elude Us, Want Something

  Anna Quindlen (2010). “Living Out Loud”, p.260, Ballantine Books

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• But what you could perhaps do with in these days is a word of most sincere sympathy. Your movement is carried internally by so strong a truth and necessity that victory in one form or another cannot elude you for long.

  Hjalmar Schacht

  Sympathy, Strong, Elude You

  3 Copy quote

• Crime is a fact of the human species, a fact of that species alone, but it is above all the secret aspect, impenetrable and hidden. Crime hides, and by far the most terrifying things are those which elude us.

  Georges Bataille

  Elude Us, Scary, Secret

  Georges Bataille (1991). “The Trial of Gilles de Rais”, Amok Books

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many women long for what eludes them, and like not what is offered them.

  Ovid

  Women, Long

  Ovid (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ovid (Illustrated)”, p.311, Delphi Classics

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• General principles are not the less true or important because from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it.

  William Hazlitt

  Philosophy, Elude Us, Air

  William Hazlitt (1809). “The Eloquence of the British Senate: Being a Selection of the Best Speeches of the Most Distinguished English, Irish, and Scotch Parliamentary Speakers, from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles I. to the Present Time”, p.209

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Pain, Punishment, Evil

  FaceBook post by Bret Easton Ellis from Jan 11, 2014

  3 Copy quote

  Show source