Beloved Philippe, I'm adding a little more of the quotation so I'm sure I have it all in context:

All along you have been trying to be your own counsel. Yes, of course, your success is dependent upon you. There are no rag-tail ends to pin anything on. It is you who issue forth from yourself and your life that seems to turn on a dime. It is you who decides to turn left or to turn left. Right now, it is your turn. You precede yourself. No one else precedes you in your life. You are your own discovery, and it is you who takes your own first steps. It is you who goes around in circles. Going around in circles isn’t all bad, for, in this way, you may discover the Land of the Free.

The expression "to pin it on" means to put the responsibility on someone else. God is telling us the responsibility is our own.

As for rag-tail ends, I see it as meaning that there's not even a thread of evidence that makes anyone else responsible. Rag-tail, to my mind, means kind of a rag, the worst little rag you can find.

This is my sense of it, Philippe. Does that help? Others may be coming to help out as well.

Thank you for asking your question. Please, always feel comfortable to ask!

Hi Philippe~ This seems to be another of those unique instances of Gloria's amazing mind at work. I think the overriding concept here is the children's game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, which involves a picture of a donkey without the tail, and whoever is "it" is blindfolded and attempts to pin a separate tail with a pin attached to the proper place in the picture.

Mix in with this the expression Rag Tag, which I learn is another children's game I never heard of. This one involves children in a circle with the person who is "it" walking around the circle carrying a rag or handkerchief which is dropped behind a chosen child who then has to touch or "tag" the running first child. What I read said this game is called jeu du mouchoir in France.

The only way I have ever heard "rag tag" used is as an expression meaning raggedy or shabby or put together with whatever is on hand. In the American Revolutionary War, the British probably referred to the Americans as a rag tag army. It carries a sense of superiority or contempt by the one using the expression.

Now mix this all up in Gloria's magic mixing bowl and you come up with "There are no rag-tail ends to pin anything on." It seems to make perfect sense if you don't think about it much. I can picture a blindfolded child with a donkey's tail in hand walking around in circles feeling for the picture of a donkey that isn't there.

But as how to translate the sentence, I am as baffled as you and Gloria. I don't think this is a mistake or typo that needs fixing. It seems to me that translating it literally is probably the best option. I would translate it to give the picture of a blindfolded child holding a long, narrow rag with a pin stuck thru the end of it searching for something to pin it on that isn't there. I would translate "rag-tail" as literally as possible.

This probably won't make any more sense in French or Chinese or Russian than English, and probably less sense if the culture does not have the children's game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I would be most interested in what you come up with, and I expect Normand would as well.