Unattainable quotes

Unattainable

58 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

58 quotes
Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha Spiritual Teacher

"The deluding passions are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all. The number of beings is endless. I vow to save them all. The Truth cannot be told. I vow to explain it. The Way which cannot be followed is unattainable. I vow to attain it."

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside unattainable — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Unattainable quotes (page 1 of 3)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Unattainable

"All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever."

Read quote 4 likes
Edith Wharton Novelist, Short Story Writer
Unattainable

"Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery."

Read quote 3 likes
Betty Smith Author
Unattainable

"It was a good thing that she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds beside the world she had been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable."

Read quote 3 likes
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet
Unattainable

"And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable."

Read quote 3 likes