Quotes & Sayings About Chasing Your Tail

Naturally, when a young fellow steps up into a big position, it breeds jealousy among those whom he's left behind and uneasiness among those to whom he's pulled himself up. Between them he's likely to be subjected to a lot of petty annoyances. But he's in the fix of a dog with fleas who's chasing a rabbit
if he stops to snap at the tickling on his tail, he's going to lose his game dinner. — George Horace Lorimer

I'm a mite worried about how Foodle will respond to being out here," her aunt continued. "She's so sensitive to strange surroundings." Foodle apparently excelled at hiding her sensitivities, for she was chasing her tail with great enthusiasm. — Sabrina Jeffries

I was kind of like chasing my tail and trying to do the right thing, and was a little bit stupid. Or irresponsible, which is the same thing I guess. It's just been really busy and I had a lot of great opportunities. — Robert Downey Jr.

Jess and Ric watched as a shifted Blayne chased the squirrel, caught the squirrel, toyed with the squirrel, let the squirrel go, only to go chasing after it again. Until she was distracted by the crow that she tried to catch in her mouth.
"So ... when are you due?"
Jess winced at Ric's question as Blayne ran into a tree, backed up, and went after the bird again.
"Mid-March."
"And you're having a - "
"Yes. Yes, I'm having a wolfdog."
"Huh."
Blayne was turning in circles now, trying to catch her tail.
"Blayne," Jess called out. "Blayne!"
The wolfdog immediately stopped and started to walk over to Jess and Ric. Too bad the dizziness got the best of her, though, because she stumbled sideways into another tree and slid down, panting. — Shelly Laurenston

And that fox escaped with his tail between his legs, with all of the hens chasing after him — Isabel Allende

Oh, for heaven's sake, Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"
A bearlike black dog had appeared at Harry's side as Harry clambered over the various trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley.
"Oh honestly," said Mrs. Weasley despairingly. "Well, on your own head be it!"
The great black dog gave a joyful bark and gamboled around them, snapping at pigeons, and chasing its own tail. Harry couldn't help laughing. Sirius had been trapped inside for a very long time. — J.K. Rowling

It looked like I'd sold my pottage for a mess of afterbirth, as the saying is. I'd been chasing females all my life, not paying no mind to the fact that whatever's got tail at one end has teeth at the other, and now I was getting chomped on. — Jim Thompson

The search for truth can be compared to a cat chasing her tail: frantic in her pursuit, her quarry nevetheless eludes her; despite the fact that all the world can see it's right there, it remains just beyond her reach. It cannot be possessed because, paradoxically, it is already part of her. — Gina Barreca

Why are you chasing your tail so?" Said the kitten, "I have learned that the best thing for a cat is happiness, and that happiness is my tail. Therefore, I am chasing it: and when I catch it. I shall have happiness." Said the cat, "My son, I, too, have paid attention to the problems of the universe. I, too, have judged that happiness is in my tail. But, I have noticed that whenever I chase it, it keeps running away from me, and when I go about my business, it just seems to come after me wherever I go. — C.L.R. James

Would I be right in thinking you've been attacked by a Zeppelin crewed by German airmen?" The entire group looked astonished. "How did you know?" said the mayor. "We've been on their tail for a while." Khuwelsa put her hand over her face to hide her smile at Harry's exaggerated account of the situation. The mayor looked at Harry, then Khuwelsa, then the Pegasus. "You're chasing them? — Steve Turnbull

You are that which you seek, but you have left your own deepness and are looking elsewhere. The stress of not finding it creates its own need to be released. And so the cycle continues. You are chasing your own tail, and much of the time that tail looks suspiciously like a woman. — David Deida

America's vulnerability comes precisely from its strength, its wealth, its power and its modernity. It's the usual story of the dog chasing its own tail. — Oriana Fallaci

Here are a few things I've learned from Albert
1. Any food is fair game until it is actually swallowed by someone else.
2. Take a nap whenever you can.
3. Don't bark unless it's important.
4. Chasing one's tail is sometimes unavoidable. — Lisa Kleypas

I'd been chasing females all my life, not paying no mind to the fact that whatever's got tail at one end has teeth at the other, and now I was getting chomped. — Jim Thompson

136. So good to see you once again. I thought that you were hiding. And you thought that I had run away. Chasing the tail of dogma. I opened my eye and there we were. So good to see you once again I thought that you were hiding from me. And you thought that I had run away. Chasing a trail of smoke and reason. — Maynard James Keenan

What was I hoping to gain from this? ... Was I trying to confirm the ties that make it possible for me to exist here and now. Was I hoping to be woven into some new plot, to be given some new and better defined role to play? No, he thought, that's not it. What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of darkness inside me. I just happened to catch sight of it, and followed it, and clung to it, and in the end let it fly into still deeper darkness. I'm sure I'll never see it again. — Haruki Murakami

Without a plan your kind of just like a dog chasing it's tail, your not getting anywhere. — Gabrielle Dennis

I know, in my soul, that a love for travel is a gift and not a hindrance. It feels like a burden when the bucket list is bigger than the bank account, but a thirst for more of the world is not something to apologize for. Denying its presence feels like denying something good in me, something God put there. Wanderlust has a reputation as the epitome of unrequited love, something the young and naive chase after because they don't yet realize it's as futile as a dog chasing its tail. Turns out, ever-burning wanderlust is a good thing. — Tsh Oxenreider

In life; don't go chasing after everything, or if you go for something, never doubt and miss the step, Or else you will miss a trick of the tail and lose everything. — Auliq Ice

If your team is constantly chasing its own tail and putting out fires instead of having time to sit down and experiment, learn new things, and apply them in a manner that makes them stick, you don't have enough time to learn. — Roy Osherove

Chasing your tale? Sometimes we relive past accomplishments, failures and or past relationships to the point of exhaustion. When we do this, I liken it to a dog chasing its tail, just spinning round and round and going nowhere fast. Constantly chasing our own tales has the same effect on us. It leaves us in a state of dizzying immobility. When we wrap our arms so firmly around our past we leave little room to embrace our present future and that, my friends, is a sad tale to tell. ~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

Right now, you and me here, put together entirely from atoms that have been part of millions of other organisms before they became us, sitting on this round rock with a core of liquid iron held down by this force that so troubles you called gravity, all the while spinning around the sun at 67 thousand miles an hour and whizzing through the Milky Way at 600 thousand miles an hour in a universe that very well may be chasing its own tail at the speed of light... and amidst all this frantic activity, fully cognizant of our own imminent demise, which is a very pretty way of saying we all know we're going to die, we reach out, to one another, sometimes for the sake of vanity, sometimes for reasons you're not old enough to understand yet, but a lot of the time we just reach out... and expect nothing in return. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird? ... Isn't that... weird... enough? — Jonathan Tolins

The slaves of today will become the tyrants of tomorrow
the proletariat overthrows the hegemon to become the hegemon itself, only to be eventually overthrown by a proto-hegemon that will in turn lose its position. It is this dizzying cycle that keeps humanity chasing the tail it lost millennia ago — Miguel Syjuco

Faith when looked at by the world looks like a dog chasing his tail.
Chase your tail or go to hell,crazy dog wins. — Attaboy

What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me. — Haruki Murakami

Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My fabulous architect godfather and mentor told me once that striving toward a goal - or perfection - gives one focus and direction, which is a helluva lot better than chasing one's tail. — Catherine Stock

To try to please people is an endless chasing of one's own tail. That's not very satisfying, so we do what we like and that satisfies us. When it does work out, its a bonus, really. — Wayne Coyne

Every time I start chasing my tail, and I'm trying to control all these elements of my universe, I pray, 'I'm not in control of any of this. I can just do the best I can. Please guide me. Please help me figure how I can move through this in the way You would have me.' — Cheryl Ladd

Retaliation is a dog chasing its tail — Libba Bray

Every sentence he manages to utter scatters its component parts like pond water from a verb chasing its own tail. — Clive James

We were making good time now, barrelling through the bodacious curves of southeastern Utah and ignoring all impending signs of trouble with the van. At least I was.
"You guys happy?" I said.
The kids smiled at me like I was a dog chasing my tail, sweet but stupid, and looked away. — Miriam Toews

I think that I'm running from something I heard on the radio That everybody's working for the weekend When does the weekend start? What comes at the end of the week? The end? Picture a tired dog chasing its tail — Henry Rollins

That's when I heard the sounds of a certified genius spinning around in circles like a dog chasing its tail. — Ally Carter

All I tell artists is, 'Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you're chasing your tail that way. It's not going to happen, and if you're successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.' — Gloria Estefan