Elusive Quotes

• In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Attitude

  Mahatma Gandhi (2011). “The Way to God: Selected Writings from Mahatma Gandhi”, p.55, North Atlantic Books

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• The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.

  John Buchan

  Fishing, Trout, Fisherman

  John Buchan (1921). “Great Hours in Sport”, London : T. Nelson

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• What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

  Willa Cather

  Running, Sweet, Art

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.375, Simon and Schuster

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• Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive.

  Steven Spielberg

  Inevitable

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• Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

  Donald Barthelme

  Writing, Found, Worst

  1972 Sadness,'The Rise of Capitalism'.

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• The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than a razor’s edge, sharper than a hound’s tooth, more agile than a mule deer. It is more elusive than the merest phantom. Perhaps it does not even exist; perhaps it is a phantom.

  Philip K. Dick

  Insanity, Teeth, Doe

  Philip K. Dick (2011). “The VALIS Trilogy”, p.56, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Mysteriously, as elusive as it is, this moment--where the eye is what it sees, where the heart is what it feels--this moment shows us that what is real is sacred

  Mark Nepo

  Real, Heart, Eye

  Mark Nepo (2011). “The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have (Gift Edition)”, p.35, Conari Press

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• Leadership is an elusive concept, hard to describe and impossible to prescribe. It is more evident in its absence, so that when leadership is needed, its lack is sorely felt.

  Patrick Dodson

  Leadership, Elusiveness, Impossible

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• life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

  Willa Cather

  Life, Running, Sweet

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.375, Simon and Schuster

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• Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Happiness, Stories, Antithesis

  Eckhart Tolle (2008). “Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth”, p.12, Penguin

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• In looking for my mind, I discovered that it seems to be in many different places. Sometimes it is drinking a glass of water, remembering swimming in the summer, feeling the breeze. In this contemplation I observed that the self is more elusive than I thought.

  Sakyong Mipham

  Summer, Drinking, Swimming

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• Mind is elusive, you cannot hold it in your hand. You cannot force it into a test-tube. The only way to know it is to know it from within, from your witnessing self. The more you become aware, the more you can watch your mind - its subtle functioning. The functioning is tremendously complex and beautiful. Mind is the most complex phenomenon on the earth, the most subtle flowering of consciousness. If you want to really understand what the mind is, then you will have to detach yourself from your mind, and you will have to learn how to be just a witness. That's what meditation is all about.

  Rajneesh

  Beautiful, Self, Hands

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• The adventure of composition is a mystery. The muse has her ways, she hides from you, comes for you in the middle of the night, at midday, at dawn. You must believe wholeheartedly in this divine power. Its an elusive gift that can appear at any time, anywhere. Artists are in awe of it.

  Mickey Hart

  Believe, Adventure, Artist

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• Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Struggle, Men, Air

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007). “The Great Gatsby”, p.127, Broadview Press

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• Don't Let the Elusive Present Moment Get Used Up by Thoughts that Aren't in the Here & Now

  Wayne Dyer

  Moments, Used, Present Moment

  Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (2016). “10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace”, p.71, Hay House, Inc

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• I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.

  Martin Seligman

  Giving Up, Believe, Passionate Desire

  Martin E. P. Seligman (1998). “Learned Optimism”, Free Press

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• The most elusive knowledge of all is self-knowledge and it is usually acquired laboriously through experience outside the classroom.

  Mirra Komarovsky

  Education, School, Self

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• She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

  Jerry Spinelli

  Flower, Butterfly, Mind

  Jerry Spinelli (2012). “The Stargirl Collection”, p.17, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless.

  Alan Watts

  Time, Past, Thinking

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• Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all.

  Camille Paglia

  Sensitivity, Masculinity, Manhood

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.82, Vintage

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• Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  "Humor, Play, & Laughter : Stress-proofing Life with Your Kids" by Joseph A. Michelli, (p. 88), 1998.

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• Greatness is not this, wonderful, esoteric, elusive, god-like feature that only the special among us will ever taste. You know? It's something that truly exists, in, all of us. It's very simple, this is what I believe, and, I'm willing to die for it. Period. It's that simple.

  Will Smith

  Believe, Simple, Greatness

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• If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.

  Branford Marsalis

  Song, People, Musician

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• The elusive nature of love... it can be such a fleeting thing. You see it there and it's just fluttering and it's gone.

  Mick Jagger

  Gone, Fleeting, Fluttering

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• One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.

  Muriel Spark

  Girl, Time, Growing Up

  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ch. 1 (1961)

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