Glass Is Half Empty Quotes & Sayings

Counting our blessings can transform melancholy into cheerful mass; laughter and joy are expressions of praise and thanksgiving for life's glories. When looking at the glass that symbolizes our life, we can view it as half full or half empty. The choice is ours ... The more joyful we are, the more attractive we become. When we feel gratitude for our experiences, it becomes easier to see the good that always exists. When we give a smile to someone else, we are likely to receive one in return, and that smile reflects a happy heart that is open and receptive to what the good life has in store. — John Templeton

It is pleasant to sit quietly somewhere, in the beer garden for example, under the chestnuts by the skittle-alley. The leaves fall down on the table and on the ground, only a few, the first. A glass of beer stands in front of me, I've learned to drink in the army. The glass is half empty, but there are a few good swigs ahead of me, and besides I can always order a second and a third if I wish to.
There are no bugles and no huge attacks, the children of the house play in the skittle-alley, and the dog rests his head against my knee. The sky is blue, between the leaves of the chestnuts rises the green spire of St. Margaret's Church. — Erich Maria Remarque

Where the average person appreciates the beauty of surf and waves, Gus, an engineer, sees only practical design. Gravity, plus ocean current, plus wind. Poetry to the common man is a unicorn viewed from the corner of an eye - an unexpected glimpse of the intangible. To an engineer, only the ingenuity of pragmatic solutions is poetic. Function over form. It's not a question of optimism or pessimism, a glass half full or half empty. To an engineer, the glass is simply too big. — Noah Hawley

To me, the glass is always half full, never half empty. — Eddie Money

Not a single object seems to possess a practical use. The antechamber itself seems useless, a sort of vestibule to a barn, It is exactly the same sort of sensation I get when I enter the Comedie-Francaise or the Palaise- Royal Theatre; ; it is a world of bric-a-brac, of trap doors, of arms and busts and waxed floors, of candelabras and men in armor, of statues without eyes and love letters lying in glass cases. Something is going on, but it makes no sense; it's like finishing the half-empty bottle of Calvados because there's no room in the valise. — Henry Miller

It doesn't matter if the glass is half full or half empty. I am gonna drink it through this crazy straw. — Joey Comeau

What, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty? Bullshit. What they don't tell you is that regardless of how full the glass is, it's filled with acid, and you'll burn your face off. — T.J. Klune

If your glass is half empty, fill it up to be full. — Karen Quan

Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.
(Said to President Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner) — Stephen Colbert

The glass is neither half full or half empty but merely too large for the contents. — Chris Byrd

The glass is not half empty; it is half full. — Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Found

My glass is not only half-empty, I'm convinced someone spit in it. — Judy Nichols

People tell me, "You're such an optimist". Am I an optimist? An optimist says the glass is half full. A pessimist says the glass is half empty. A survivalist is practical. He says, "Call it what you want, but just fill the glass." I believe in filling the glass. — Louis Zamperini

Perception can be one-sided or variant: "Glass half empty or half full." There usually is more than one way of perceiving. Thoroughly check your inner dialogue. — T.F. Hodge

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Design is how you treat your customers. If you treat them well from an environmental, emotional, and aesthetic standpoint, you're probably doing good design. — Yves Behar

Whether your glass is half full or half empty there's still room for more wine. — Trish Jackson

Is there such a thing as a life without any regrets? I've never believed so. We spend our lives aiming for happiness and fulfilment in work, in love and with our friends and family, and yet often our energy is spent lamenting bad boyfriends, wrong career turns, fallouts with friends and opportunities missed. Or is that just me? I admit I'm naturally a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but I know regrets are a burden to happiness and I'm trying to let go of them because I've learned that it's all about choice. You can choose to turn regrets into lessons that change your future. Believe me when I say I'm really trying to do this. But the truth is, I'm failing. Because all I can think right now is: maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is my penance. — Ali Harris

Fortunately you took the towel on top and you didn't find your bras stashed under the bottom towel. Hopefully, you didn't open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and find your scratched-up silver hair clip (I stole it the first day I stepped into your apartment, those clips are everywhere, you'd never miss it, right?). I needed it because a few delicious strands of your hair are woven in, holding your DNA, your scent. Did you open the refrigerator door and find your leftover bottle of Nantucket Nectar diet iced tea, half-empty? Your lips touched it and I wanted to keep your lips in my refrigerator. You did pour a glass of water and there is always the possibility that you would have mistaken your iced tea bottle for my own. — Caroline Kepnes

Age-old question: Is the glass half empty or half full? Answer: Who cares? Does it really matter whether the glass is half full or half empty? The issue is whether it quenches your thirst. — Larry Winget

If the business world is divided between optimists and pessimists (Schumpeter, January 31st) then perhaps what is needed are more scientists. There is an old joke that goes: to an optimist the glass is half full; to a pessimist it is half empty. To an engineer the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. — Anonymous

I never quite understood the question that says, is the glass half empty or half full? What's the difference? Eventually it'll end up empty and in the trash. — Cyndi Goodgame

Cognitive therapists focus on getting patients to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. Being positive has become rather a fetish. A more radical tactic would be to abolish the need for evaluation and just accept the glass as it is, whether it be cracked or brimming. — Gwyneth Lewis

To me, the glass is half-empty some days and half-full on others. Sometimes it's bone-dry. Or overflowing. — Mary Alice Monroe

Imagine a delicious glass of summer iced tea.
Take a long cool sip. Listen to the ice crackle and clink.
Is the glass part full or part empty?
Take another sip.
And now? — Vera Nazarian

Doesn't matter if the glass is half-empty or half-full. All that matters is that you are the one pouring the water. — Mark Cuban

The optimist says, "The glass is half full."
The pessimist says, "The glass is half empty."
The rationalist says, "This glass is twice as big as it needs to be."
That makes it clear as glass. — Thomas Cathcart

One day, someone showed me a glass of water that was half full. And he said, "Is it half full or half empty?" So I drank the water. No more problem. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

The lesson: If the optimist says the glass is half full, and the pessimist says the glass is half empty, the physicist ducks. — Randall Munroe

This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated. — Emily Giffin

If you live feeling like
Your glass is half empty, well,
It may as well be empty all the way. — Mattie J.T. Stepanek

I hate how many people think "glass half-empty" when their glass is really four-fifths full. I'm grateful when I have one drop in the glass because I know exactly what to do with it. — Gary Vaynerchuk

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's simply larger than it needs to be. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission — Grace Hopper

I'm a glass-is-half-full person now, and your sorry ass is still in half-empty country. — Janet Evanovich

It's not whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's who is pouring the water. The key in business and success at any endeavor is doing your best to control your destiny. You can't always do it, but you have to take every opportunity you can to be as prepared as-and ahead of-the competition as you possibly can be. — Mark Cuban

The shot glass is half smashed. — Brian Spellman

When looking at your reserve when going through trials and you see a glass over half empty, remember to look at the one who gives the water. Our focus is what is important, not our struggle. — Gail Davis

I perceive," he said, "that you are of the half-empty-glass school of thought, Miss Osbourne, while I am of the half-full school." "Then we are quite incompatible," she said. "Not necessarily so," he said. "Some differences of opinion will provide us with topics upon which to hold a lively debate. There is nothing more dull than two people who are so totally in agreement with each other upon every subject under the sun that there really is nothing left worth saying." But — Mary Balogh

Let's put it this way: the glass is half-empty, but the fact is, I can always get another drink — Ville Valo

There is an old cliche, 'You can see the glass half empty, or you can see it half full.' You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right. But whatever you focus on, you're going to get more of. Creation is an extension of thought. Think lack, and you get lack. Think abundance, and you get more. — Marianne Williamson

A pessimist looks at his glass and says it is half empty; an optimist looks at it and says it is half full. — Josiah Stamp

Of course, to a true geek, the glass is neither half-full nor half-empty. It's twice as big as it currently needs to be, though a reasonable reserve margin is not a bad thing to have ready, just in case. — David S. Platt

For an optimist the glass is half full, for a pessimist it's half empty.And for an Engineer it is twice
bigger than necessary. — Sudeep Nagarkar

Seeing the glass as half empty is more positive than seeing it as half full. Through such a lens the only choice is to pour more. That is righteous pessimism. — Criss Jami

Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it.
"The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside.
"The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual."
"Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle."
"Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy."
"Also known as the good kind," he countered.
Abby huffed. — Ally Carter

I never look at the glass as half empty or half full. I look to see who is pouring the water and deal with them. — Mark Cuban

I'm a lawyer. Pessimists see a glass half-empty; optimists see a glass half-full. Lawyers see a glass containing possible carcinogenic materials without a warning label. Skepticism is coded in our DNA. — Naima Simone

I've always been a glass-half-full as opposed to a glass-half-empty, and the day that changes is the day I should leave. — John Key

There are lots of things, including changing the kind of inner dialog, that can mitigate anxiety. And yes, there are people who have the glass half full and glass half empty, and I'm afraid the glass is going to break and I'll cut myself on the shards. — Scott Stossel

An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be. — Oscar Wilde

I'm supposed to figure out if the glass is half full or half empty," I told her.
Without a moment's hesitation, in a split second, my grandmother shrugged and said: "It depends on if you're drinking or pouring. — Bill Cosby

The idea is to help patients more clearly assess the contents of their thought stream, teaching them to note and correct the conceptual errors termed "cognitive distortions" that characterize psychopathological thinking. Somone in the grips of such thinking would, for instance, regard a half-full glass not merely as half-empty but also fatally flawed, forever useless, constitutionally incapable of ever being full, and fit only to be discarded. By the mid-1980s, cognitive therapy was being used more and more in combination with behavioral therapy for OCD, and it seemed naturally compatible with a mindfulness-based perspective. If I could show that a cognitive-behavioral approach, infused with mindful awareness, could be marshaled against the disease, and if successful therapy were accompanied by changes in brain activity, then it would represent a significant step toward demonstrating the causal efficacy of mental activity on neural circuits. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

But you know, I'm the negative-Nancy, curmudgeon, glass-half-empty-with-a-leak-in-it guy - which is basically the fuel that fires me up anyway. Without that, we wouldn't have me. — Maynard James Keenan

People who argue whether the glass is half empty or half full are probably not thirsty. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Dad loves his father, but he says he has always been the same. Even when his kids were young, Grandpa John was always negative. If Grandma is a glass half full, Grandpa is a totally empty glass with a desert at the bottom of it. Despite — Kaz Campbell

Stop asking if the glass is half full or half empty. Instead ask "What's in it? How did it get there? What can I do with it?" — David Kaufman

There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?
And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. — Terry Pratchett

After expressing his appreciation that his glass is half full rather than being completely empty, he will go on to express his delight in even having a glass: It could, after all, have been broken or stolen. — William B. Irvine

Some say the glass is half full and blush,
Some say it's half empty and sink,
I feel you are in the midst of,
reaching out for another awesome drink! — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

His words are like the sound of a needle dragging across a record. A sinking, sickening feeling washes over me. This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So, when the whole things spills, you aren't as devastated. — Emily Giffin

Is the glass half full, or half empty? It depends on whether you're pouring, or drinking. — Bill Cosby

The problem with you is that you always see a glass of milk half empty instead of half filled. — Jodi Picoult

I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half-empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth. — Janeane Garofalo

If you analyze a host of real world outcomes using adoption studies, fraternal v. identical twin studies, twins-raised-apart studies, the history of early childhood intervention research, naturally-occurring experiments, differences between societies, changes over history, and so forth, you tend to come up with nature and nurture as being about equally important: maybe fifty-fifty. The glass is roughly half-full and half-empty. — Steve Sailer

Don't bother. The glass is half-empty.
— Norman Vincent Peale

You should never look at the cup or glass as being half empty; see it as being half empty, then you will have mastered the test of greatness. — Barbara Hart