élan vital

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

He is proud of his erudition, using French phrases like elan vital, but he sometimes tosses out strange neologisms, like "braggadocious."

From Time Magazine Archive

The New Morality Life is a process of expansion, of the unfoldment of new powers; driven by that inner impulse which the philosophers of Pragmatism call the elan vital.

From The Profits of Religion by Sinclair, Upton

For example, when he likens the elan vital to a stream, he does not suggest that because the stream manifests certain characteristics, therefore the life force does so too.

From Bergson and His Philosophy by Gunn, John Alexander

In this connexion, has it been remarked that while an Englishman gave to the French the term "struggle for life," a Frenchman has given to us the term elan vital?

From Bergson and His Philosophy by Gunn, John Alexander

But we cannot thus account for the elan vital itself.

From Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge by Philip, Alexander