Half Empty Half Full Quotes & Sayings

This living stuff is a lot. Too much, and not enough. Half empty, and half full. — Diane Keaton

For you the cup isn't half full or half empty, you're always topping it up. — Rowena Cory Daniells

Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half empty one are contained in that word. — Alan K. Simpson

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

Time does have a way of softening most things. Anger, hate, and even loss are often diluted by the passage of time. And memories, well they become more precious as days go by . . . until one day the cup that seemed half-empty, incredibly, becomes half-full. — Cynthia Mock Burroughs

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

The empty quarter, the empty half, the empty outside of a full beaker ... why are these the things he looks for? — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

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

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

Half full, half empty - it doesn't matter. It's the same glass of water. — Debbie Viguie

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

Some people see the liquid and thing half full. Others only see the air and think half empty. Sometimes I get the sense Chatham sees it all, which is kind of terrifying. I don't know if I want him to see me--the real me. — McCall Hoyle

Glass half empty, glass half full, glass too small? — David Mitchell

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

The difference between a fairly interesting writer and a fascinating writer is that the fascinating writer has a better nose for what genuinely excites him, he is hotter on the trail, he has a better instinct for what is truly alive in him. The worse writer may seem to be more sensible in many ways, but he is less sensible in this vital matter: he cannot distinguish what is full of life from what is only half full or empty of it. And so his writing is less alive, and as a writer he is less alive, and in writing, as in everything else, nothing matters but life. — Ted Hughes

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

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

Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas. — James Alan Gardner

A thankful heart is never half-full or half-empty, but always overflowing with love. — Wes Fesler

Let me ask you this: How many days do you have left, if any, in the life you promised for yourself yesterday? — Dave Matthes

I'm a confirmed negaholic. I don't just see a glass that's half full and call it half-empty; I see a glass that's completely full and worry that someone's going to tip it over. — Peter McWilliams

Glass half empty, glass half full. Well, either way you won't be going thirsty, count your blessings not your flaws ... — Lauren Aquilina

Some of us come from families where we were not taught healthy emotional language and habits. We did not get a balanced perspective of the world and relationships, and some of us got a distorted view of where we stood in relation to the rest of the world. We felt (and many of us still do) less than. In order to make up for that, we learned to exaggerate and lie and blow our accomplishments way out of proportion in order to feel of some value. To succeed, we have to stop thinking we are less than other people. We tell ourselves we are not unworthy, inadequate, or unable to cope fully with life's problems. We begin to see the glass as half full instead of half empty. We have to get rid of feelings of inability before we can make progress. As we learn more about how false pride has held us back from our full potential, we remember, "If we change our thoughts, we can change ourselves. — Bill Pittman

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

I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken. — Sarah Dessen

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

So what's the problem?'
'No problem. There's no problem. Don't ever say what's the problem, nthat's the negative way of looking at things, you know like is the bottle half empty or half full, know what I mean, every problem is also an opportunity, the question here is what opportunity does this present us with?'
'It seems to me', said Ernest stubbornly, 'that this opportunity presents us with a problem. Is there a director that Virginia would like? — Jonathan Lynn

The cup is both half full and half empty; it has never been one or the other. Stop obsessing over the trivial cup and drink the medicine you've been given. — Richelle E. Goodrich

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 thinks of lard as a kind of pure high saturated fat but it is only 41 % saturated, while it is mostly (47 %) MUFA, predominantly oleic acid, the main fat in olive oil. So it is a question of whether you think that lard is half full of SFA or half empty. — Richard David Feinman

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

Was Cook's ship a scientific expedition protected by a military force or a military expedition with a few scientists tagging along? That's like asking whether your petrol tank is half empty or half full. It was both. The Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable. People such as Captain James Cook and the botanist Joseph Banks could hardly distinguish science from empire. — Yuval Noah Harari

If you expect to reach the goal of perfection, never look at the cup as being half empty, see it as being half full. — Barbara Hart

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

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

Think positive and be a half full glass not half empty glass person. Positive thoughts work so much better than negative ones — Raven McAllan

On bended knee is no way to be free
lifting up an empty cup I ask silently
that all my destinations will accept the one that's me
so I can breath
Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
half their lives they say goodnight to wive's they'll never know
got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul
so it goes ... — Eddie Vedder

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

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

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

Half full or half empty, just be thankful if your glass has anything in it at all. — D.E. Sievers

Don't settle for a half empty glass, always go for a full one! — Stephen Richards

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

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

So it's like that old adage about seeing the cup as half full rather than half empty?"
"That's a fair way to look at it. No matter what happens to you in your life, you alone have the capacity to choose your response to it. When you form the habit of searching for the positive in every circumstance, your life will move into its highest dimensions. This is one of the greatest of all the natural laws."
"And it all starts with using your mind more effectively?"
"Exactly, John. All success in life, whether material or spiritual, starts with that twelve-pound mass sitting between your shoulders. Or more specifically, with the thoughts that you put into your mind every second of every minute of every day. Your outer world reflects the state of your inner world. By controlling the thoughts that you think and the way you respond to the events of your life, you begin to control your destiny. — Robin S. Sharma

I will allow others to be there for me. I will share my feelings. I'm not allowed to fake it! I will view the world as a positive place. The cup is half full, not half empty. — Ronnie Sellers

You can't look at a glass half full or empty if it's overflowing. — Kanye West

It was about half-past one - 'only half-past one,' Lucy complained - when she and Walter and Spandrell left the restaurant. 'Still young,' was Spandrell's comment on the night. 'Young and rather insipid. Nights are like human beings - never interesting till they're grown up. Round about midnight they reach puberty. At a little after one they come of age. Their prime is from two to half-past. An hour later they're growing rather desperate, like those man-eating women and waning middle-aged men who hop around twice as violently as they ever did in the hope of persuading themselves that they're not old. After four they're in full decay. And their death is horrible. Really horrible at sunrise, when the bottles are empty and people look like corpses and desire's exhausted itself into disgust. I have rather a weakness for the deathbed scenes, I must confess,' Spandrell added. 'I'm — Aldous Huxley

The shot glass is half smashed. — Brian Spellman

Some people see a glass as half empty; some see it as half full. I put the glass in a cupboard and forget it's there. You get my point? — Kristin Hannah

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

i'm a realist, miss randall. if you show me a glass, i see it as neither half-empty nor half-full. i see enough water to drown a man, if i can find a way to put it in his lungs. — D.L. Snell

Anything was better than nothing. Half-full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering. — Becca Fitzpatrick

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

Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty.
I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be. — George Carlin

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

Don't be fooled by clever hands, sir" the Sunlight Man said. He'd be lying with the back of his head on his hands, as he always lay. "Entertainment's all very well, but the world is serious. It's exceedingly amusing, when you think about it: nothing in life is as startling or shocking or mysterious as a good magician's trick. That's what makes stagecraft deadly. Listen closely, friend. You see great marvels performed on the stage - the lady sawed in half, the fat man supported by empty air, the Hindu vanishing with the folding of a cloth - and the subtlest of poisons drifts into your brain: you think the earth dead because the sky is full of spirits, you think the hall drab because the stage is adazzle with dimestore gilt. So King Lear rages, and the audience grows meek, and tomorrow, in the gray of old groceries, the housewife will weep for Cordelia and despair for herself. They weren't fools, those old sages who called all art the Devil's work. It eats the soul. — John Gardner

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

Whether the glass seems half full or half empty depends on how thirsty you are. — Marty Rubin

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

I'm a positive thinker and actor. I look at a glass; a negative person sees the glass and says: too bad it's half empty ... I look at the same glass and say: Hallelujah!! It's half full!!! — Maya Angelou

An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle ... in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard ... — Dave Matthes

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

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

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

If general perception changes from seeing the glass as 'half-full' to seeing it as 'half empty' there are major innovative opportunities. — Peter Drucker

And besides, we're not really all that different. Although I think I'm a little more ... "
"What?"
"Optimistic." She nudged him with her shoulder. "You're Eeyore."
He blinked. "You think I'm Eeyore?"
"You tell me. I take my empty glass and try to fill it up with what happiness I can find. Friends, family, my work ... And then there's you."
He raised a brow. "Me."
She nudged him again, looking playful and damn sexy while she was at it. It was the short shorts with the boots, he decided. Or everything. It was everything.
"You take that empty glass," she said, happily analyzing him. "And you wonder what the heck to do with it. You don't need the glass, you don't have time for the glass. Hell, you'll just drink from a spigot if you get thirsty. And in any case, there's probably another one up the road if that one runs out, so - — Jill Shalvis

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

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

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

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

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

Was there no one over thirty-five who had not some secret agony, some white-faced fear? Half one's life one walked carelessly, certain that some day one would have one's heart's desire: and for the rest of it, one either goes empty, or walks carrying a full cup, afraid of every step. — Helen Waddell

We did some soul-searching. Was the cable industry obsolete? Was it an opportune time to get out? Our conclusion was that if you rebuilt your system with this new fiber-optic coaxial hybrid - which we now call broadband - the glass was half full, not half empty. We could compete. — Brian Roberts

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

I'm a pessimistic person, I see the glass half empty even when it's full. — Nigahiga

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

Optimists see the glass as half full.
Pessimists see the glass as half empty.

Experiential trainers see the whole glass and its context. — Bogdan Vaida

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

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

I'm not glass-half-full, glass-half-empty; I'm like, "There's a glass?" — Damon Lindelof

I think you gotta look at stuff half-full as opposed to half-empty. — Pauly Shore

It's not a case of the glass being half full or half empty; more that we tipped a whole half-pint into an empty pint pot. I had to see how much was there, though, and now I know. — Nick Hornby

She was a level-headed woman who saw the glass as neither half empty nor half full, but rather a glass with something in it and room to pour in more ... — Joanne Fluke

So you mean to tell me you won't fuck anyone you don't share some kind of deep emotional connection with? What a sad, depressing, truly horrible life you must lead ... — Dave Matthes

Half full, half empty, what the hell difference does it make? If there's something in the damn glass, drink it. — Nora Roberts

The road was clogged with limbers and motor vehicles and men marching towards the front. They look like a machine: all the boots moving as one, shoulders bristling with rifles, arms swinging, everything pointing forwards. And on the other side of the road, men stumbling back, trying to keep time, half dead from exhaustion and with this incredible stench hanging over them. You get whiffs of it when you cut the clothes off wounded men, but out there, in the mass, it's as solid as a wall. And they all look so gray, faces twitching, young men who've been turned into old men. It's a great contrast, stark and terrible, because they're the same men, really. It's an irrigation system, full buckets going one way, empty buckets the other. Only it's not water the buckets carry. — Pat Barker

They had nothing to eat but Ryan's food, and they ate little of that because it was so dry, but it seemed to sustain them. Their greatest worry was water. Though they drank only a little each day, Westerly's flask was empty and the bottle in Cally's pack now only half-full.
"I wish I was a camel," Cally said.
Westerly said, "I wouldn't want
to spend this much time with a girl who looked like a camel."
She tried to laugh, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and her mind full of hopelessness. "When this is gone, we shall just die of thirst."
"We'll be out of the dunes by then," Westerly said encouragingly. But he knew that the mountains, though nearer now on the hazy horizon, were far more than a day's walk away. — Susan Cooper

Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big. — George Carlin

Some people see the glass as half-empty, while others see it as half-full. But Jones stares at it and tries to figure out who drank the damn water. — Chris Kuzneski

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

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

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

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

He sat with his cup of tea at the kitchen table. On the window ledge beside him stood the two bottles of cherry brandy, one half empty, the other full. Romantic thoughts stirred in the silence, touching again on unwritten novels and the past. He suddenly had the sensation of being abroad, out of reach of yesterday's existence. This abroad was a place of tranquillity, a Switzerland of the soul blanketed in snows of peace, permeated with a dread of causing disturbance; where no bird sang or called, as if out of no desire to. — Andrey Kurkov

He wouldn't call a glass of water half full or half empty; he'd assume it was poisoned and run away. — Michael Reisman

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