Knowing When to Stop Quotes

I always said that when it was time to retire, I would know it, and I would just tip my hat to the crowds.

Did you stop because it was good enough, or could have done more - but then maybe ruined it too? Sometimes you finish because you've gone too far.

I would like to think I will be a guy who knows when it's time to stop. I don't want to be a guy who hung on and hung on. I do not have a goal in mind of a year or a statistic.

The Tao can't be perceived. Smaller than an electron, it contains uncountable galaxies. If powerful men and women could remain centered in the Tao, all things would be in harmony. The world would become a paradise. All people would be at peace, and the law would be written in their hearts. When you have names and forms, know that they are provisional. When you have institutions, know where their functions should end. Knowing when to stop, you can avoid any danger. All things end in the Tao as rivers flow into the sea.

As she left my room I knew I should shut up. But you know when you should shut up because you really should just shut up...but you keep on and on anyway? Well, I had that.

We miss a lot in life because we don't know when to quit, what to leave out.

It's not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It's about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

When asked how she knows when her writing is where she wants it to be: "I know when it's the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it's the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that."

When you get older, you kind of learn when something is done, you just walk away. Sometimes people just want to keep fixing things. But you know it's kind of just like your gut that tells you, "You're done, walk away" because you can always keep fixing it.

I’m constantly in doubt about what I’m doing, I’m constantly tortured, and that’s why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. I’m not striving for happiness, I’m trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what you’re doing, working and working until you feel it’s finished. And that’s an interesting point too, that you’ve got to know when to stop. Sometimes there’s a magical moment when everything comes together.

Stretch the bow to the very full, and you will wish you had stopped in time.

It is profitable wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and pains are spared in not flattering ourselves against probabilities.

I think the minute you're full up and have had enough to eat, then that's time to retire.

I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, 'No. No, I'm finished. Bye.' And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won't do that.

It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.

Sometimes you need to know to quit while you're ahead or at least before things get much worse!

The art of the quoter is to know when to stop.

There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.

You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best.

How to Draw a Picture (XII) Know when you're finished, and when you are, put your pencil or your paintbrush down. All the rest is only life.

When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it, stop, you will only hurt yourself by going on.

We re all muddlers. The thing is to see is when one's got to stop muddling.

I would rather quit while I was ahead. There’s no need in overstaying your welcome.

Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough

I know when a story is finished when there is not a single thing more I can think to do to it. And since I know at the start what the last line will be, I know when I've reached that point as logically as I can that it's finished. As for the rewriting-it's not foolproof, of course, but if you're honest about having thought of every possibility and you still come back to what you have, what more can you do?