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

“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: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“Suddenly I feel I am in the space between two breaths, in the moment of time it takes to stretch out a hand to another person, in the second when the heart beats and braces itself to beat again. I stand and wait with nothing to wait for. Am I on board a ship at sea, in a house in a park, in a town in a country? Is nothing changed, can everything be swept away as a dream is swept out of the conscious mind in the morning?”
― Sven Holm, Termush

“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

“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

“‬"Which‬‭ one‬‭ of‬‭ you‬‭ first?"‬‭ the‬‭ Lion‬‭ challenged.‬ "I'll‬‭ fight‬‭ you.‬‭ Both‬‭ together‬‭ if‬‭ you‬‭ want.‬‭ I'll‬‭ fight‬‭ you‬‭ on‬ one..." He paused dramatically, raising a paw, "foot."‬ Dorothy frowned. "Why the long pause?"‬ The‬‭ Lion‬‭ glanced‬‭ at‬‭ his‬‭ paws.‬‭ "I‬‭ don’t‬‭ know—I‬ was‬‭ born‬‭ with‬‭ them!"‬”
― GLEN NESBITT, We're Off

“When you have thoughts, just hold onto them. See where they take you, and as time passes, you'll find out if you were right. Never decide right at the start if something is right or wrong.”
― Hwang Bo-Reum, Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

“Every silence is a form of punishment in its own way, but the silence that lingers between two pauses is the most lethal of all—heavy with unspoken words, unresolved emotions, and the weight of what was left unsaid.”
― Shahid Hussain Raja

“Most people never ‘stop and smell the roses’ because they never get that far down the road.”
― Craig D Lounsbrough

“Sometimes, the best productivity hack is doing absolutely nothing”
― Daniel Wieser

“Would there be a little space, she wondered, a little time, some way to hold off eventfulness, to push busyness into the corners of the room and just stand there a minute or two.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“the clutch and helplessness that resided in the hands; how blindness was altered so that what leapt to the eye were places to lie down, and all else-doorknobs, straps, hooks, the sadness that crouched in corners, and the passing of time-was interference.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“There are times when the best thing you can do is turn off your brain for a while. Stop trying to figure everything out. Don’t think, don’t solve, don’t worry. Just sit in silence. Let your mind rest, like how your body rests when it’s tired. This quiet moment is not a waste — it’s how you heal, how you recharge, and how you come back stronger.”
― Abdul Wahid Sarguroh

“Language is just an over-glorified byproduct, real conversation happens between the pauses.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“You don’t heal by pushing harder. You heal by learning to pause, gently and consistently, even while your brain tries to talk you out of it.”
― Ronen Dancziger, The Therapist's Handbook for Healing Your Simpsons Syndrome: Unhook from Your Inner Chaos Characters with CBT, ACT, and a Little Humor

“If you believe stepping out of your room is a risk, pause for a moment and think of all the people who died in their sleep.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Sips And Little Portions

“Pause. Reflect. Rise with power.”
― Farshad Asl

“Rest is not an act of selfishness, but rather the purest form of self-love.”
― Susan Mako, Chinese Horoscope 2026: Complete Yearly Zodiac Prediction

“The pause doesn’t slow you down-it makes everything that follows more precise.”
― Shamail Aijaz, The Calm Within the Storm: Leading Beyond Ego

“Composure isn’t found it’s built, one conscious breath and one wise pause at a time.”
― Shamail Aijaz, The Calm Within the Storm: Leading Beyond Ego