Pause Quotes

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)”
― Rollo May, The Courage to Create

“I’ve always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes”
― Jennifer Niven, Holding Up the Universe

“Practice the pause. Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you're about to react harshly and you'll avoid doing and saying things you'll later regret.”
― Lori Deschene

“If this were a game, he could hit pause. He could restart, say different things, the right ones this time. He could search his inventory for the item that would make Sadie not leave.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“O yes youwl want to think on that you dont want your mouf to walk you where your feet dont want to go.”
― Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker

“Is there a panic button I can hit? Or better yet, a button that will pause this whole scene while I figure out how I want to play it?
But no. That's not how it works in real life.”
― Catherine McKenzie, Forgotten

“The menopause of Sarah became her menostart; this is feminine beauty! The death plot against Mordecai became his life spring; this is masculine beauty! A kind of life lived in God's word is a life of miraculous beauty!”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“A pause; it endured horribly.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“He repeated it carefully, pausing for effect. " 'Love is the only rational act.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

“Life is not what we’re chasing. Life is what we’re leaving behind in the chasing.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“In panic it’s time to take stock and look at the virus within us, a virus addicted to hurry, busy.”
― Shaneen Clarke, The Lord of the Silence: Experiencing Intimacy With God In This Fast-Paced World

“When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions. Instead, ask your counterpart a calibrated question.”
― Kerry Patterson, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

“Time is a constant force, like two poles connected by an elastic string. Taking a pause in life is like stretching that string, gathering energy to propel us forward with greater force and speed.”
― Supratim Das

“For a time he stood listening and looking down at the town, at the smoke starting up from the chimneys and the small, diminishing stars in the sky. One of the brightest fell while he was standing there, leaving a streak like a chalk mark on a board for just a second before it vanished.”
― Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

“Some people are good at taking a Pause to put the strategy together, identify all the things there are to Think of, and make contingency plans. But when it comes to actually executing, there’s a block. Before I take this step, did I think through everything that could possibly go wrong?
More Pausing. More Thinking. More analysis.
They get paralyzed in the details. They Pause too long. They Think too much. And they never take any Action.
Maybe you can relate to this? You want everything to be just right before you move forward.
Or maybe you have the opposite problem—you Act hastily without Pausing or Thinking at all! That’s what one client told me recently: “Darcy, I realized that I do it backward. I Act, and then I Pause and Think, Ew, I shouldn’t have done that!”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“Many of us tell ourselves a story that we don’t have time for Stillness. That there’s so much to do at work and at home that we can’t make space for mental breaks. However, you need breaks. Imagine if you finished a hard workout, and immediately afterward you told yourself you had to do another hour of intense exercise. That would be crazy, right? You would insist on a break to catch your breath, drink some water, and slow your heart rate.
Just like your body, your mind needs time to relax and recover. If you ask it to keep going at top speed all day and into the evening, eventually you’re not going to be productive.”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“Agility asks us to override our knee-jerk tendency to fire back, to get angry, and to defend ourselves. When you work your core in Agility, you Pause, Think about what you want or need in the situation, and try to identify a more thoughtful and intentional course of Action. With practice, you can have the knee-jerk reactions without the jerk!”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“If you don’t stop to take in the beauty around you, you will likewise miss the beauty within you.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“My daughter Josie was nine years old when she played basketball for the first time. She’d get the ball and hold it and pivot to the right, to the left, back to the right, but seemed paralyzed by indecision. She would think and think and think about what to do—pass or shoot—but never act. At some point, you have to take the shot.
Where in your life do you pivot and pivot, but never take the shot?
Maybe you need to have a tough conversation, and you’ve thought about it over and over again. You’ve identified how to start the conversation, and you’ve worked through all your talking points. But when you think you’re ready, you pivot. You decide that the situation isn’t so bad after all. You’re too afraid to have that conversation. What if I miss the shot? What if the ball is intercepted? What if the conversation doesn’t go well?
After you Pause and Think, you must Act. This is what will help you overcome obstacles and create the turning point. When you don’t Act, you don’t make progress.
Research on the highest-performing teams shows it’s better for leaders to make a decision and act quickly rather than wait until all circumstances are perfect.”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“Pause don’t panic- Whatever you are facing, be it a personal problem or pandemic, ask yourself, Is this really going to matter a year from now?”
― Shaneen Clarke, The Lord of the Silence: Experiencing Intimacy With God In This Fast-Paced World

“Let’s face it: we judge. We all do. It’s part of our humanity. We might never say anything aloud, but we judge, or at the least, we wish others would be different or act differently. Admit it: when you’re at the grocery store, are you secretly looking at someone else’s cart and thinking, Ooh, don’t you know diet soda will kill you? Gosh, that’s loaded with carbs.
When you experience or observe behavior you don’t like, Pause and Think by asking yourself: Is this in my control? Is this any of my business?
When it’s not your business and/or not in your control, you need to Act by practicing Flexibility.”
― Darcy Luoma, Thoughtfully Fit: Your Training Plan for Life and Business Success

“By pausing, if only for a few seconds and taking a few slow, deep breaths, we can begin to slow down our heart rate and relax our tensed muscles. We can then focus more effectively on what response will best advance our interests.”
― William Ury, The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes

“Peace is not a cause,
Peace is a pause -
Pause in hate and greed,
Pause in gain and loss.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“To pause is not the same as to stop”
― Leo Lourdes, A World of Yoga: 700 Asanas for Mindfulness and Well-Being

“The Wait in A.W.E. is the pause in which we experience presence - that quality of spaciousness where the mind isn't overthinking and processing but being an observer.
With presence, there's no agenda. Nothing to do and no place to be. There's no thinking. Just being.
Because we have chosen to be in the presence of something we value, appreciate or find amazing, our experience of that moment is nourishing and powerful.
Waiting, when done with intention, is one way to be fully present.”
― Jake Eagle LPC, The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout & Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, Find Clarity & Purpose―In Less Than 1 Minute Per Day

“Nevertheless, death asks us to pause. It doesn’t tell us what we need to do when we pause (there may be nothing to do at all), but it asks us to be in its presence. To sit with it. Listen to it. To lay aside chronos and embrace kairos.”
― Caleb Wilde, Confessions of a Funeral Director: How the Business of Death Saved My Life

“Our thoughts and emotions are like a train—
we have a choice whether or not to jump on it.”
― Felisa Tan, In Search for Meaning

“Life is full of simple pleasures;
if one does not know how to enjoy them,
one would easily miss out on it.”
― Felisa Tan, In Search for Meaning

“It's not the end, Table Girl. We're just hitting pause.
LBxx
PS ILY”
― Holly Smale, Picture Perfect