“5222. To run the Wild-Goose Chace.”

1851
Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)
Context: Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

Source: The Importance of Living (1937), Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 4

Walter Joseph Hickel, on the killing of wolves, as quoted in Living With Wolves (2005) by James Dutcher. p. 8
Misattributed

On Wii
Source: E3 2005 Press Conference

"Ode to the Goose" http://www.chinese-poems.com/lbw1.html (《咏鹅》)
Variant translation:
Geese, geese, geese,
Curl necks and sing.
White feathers floating on the green,
They swim with red webbed feet.
"On Geese", as translated by YeShell in How To Write Classical Chinese Poems (Lulu Press, 2015)

Changes
Song lyrics, Hunky Dory (1971)
Context: Still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild.
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet.
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test.

Source: The Atlantis Complex

Source: As a Man Thinketh