you have no items in your basket

Tel: UK 0845 757 3888 | Ireland: 01 284 6796

My 10 Favourite ‘Half-Full’ Quotes

Picture of Jennie Marshall

Jennie Marshall

Jennie Marshall is a Learning Consultant within the Leadership, Management and Business Skills team at QA. She delivers professional development courses on topics ranging from Managing Conflict and Difficult Decisions to Presenting With Impact. In fact any professional development subject! Jennie is also involved with designing training material for QA in addition to more specific content for clients. Jennie has worked in a variety of industries including finance and utilities and is a Master of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and a Master Coach. With a background specialising in soft skills and leadership development, she is well placed to deliver a variety of professional development interventions.

Posted by Jennie Marshall
on 09 July 2012

Occasionally I need to refer back to famous optimists at those times where my glass gets a bit below half-full.

Today was one of those days (triggered by the Monday morning blues amongst other things).

I know the roller coaster will bottom out and we'll be heading back up (that's what history tells us), but in the meantime it was good to re-review my 10 favorite 'half-full' quotes:

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose- Kahlil Gibran
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection- Thomas Paine
A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them- Leonard Louis Levinson
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true- James Branch Cabell
Optimism is the foundation of courage- Nicholas Murray Butler
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties- Harry Truman
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier- Colin Powell
For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else- Sir Winston Churchill
You see things; and you say "why?" But I dream of things that never were, and I say "Why not?" - George Bernard Shaw
The tenth is actually a story an old boss used to tell just about once a month to various people who would listen; it's about two boys who one beautiful day were exploring their neighbour's farm and came upon an empty barn that smelled of manure - the first boy said, "We got to get out of here, this smells horrible", but the second boy said "Oh boy, this is great - there must be horses around!". Yes, true optimists can even find a silver lining from manure!

top of page

Useful Information

Portals

About Us

QA - training courses across the UK and Ireland from the leading provider of PRINCE2 and Microsoft training

QA provides PRINCE2 training, project management training, Microsoft training, Cisco training plus an extensive range of 1500 other courses covering all areas of IT, project management, service management, business applications and professional development. We provide PRINCE2 training and all courses in locations including London, Bristol, Reading, Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ireland plus online eLearning and virtual learning.

PRINCE2®, ITIL®, M_o_R®, MoP®, P3O®, MSP® and MoV® are registered trade marks of the Cabinet Office. The Swirl logo™ is a trade mark of the Cabinet Office. The PRINCE2®, ITIL®, M_o_R®, MoP®, P3O®, MSP® and MoV® Accredited Training Organization logos are trade marks of the Cabinet Office. PMI®, PMP®. CAPM® and PMBOK®guide are registered certification marks and trademarks of the Project Management Institute Inc. Green Project Management®, is a registered trademark of GPM Global. BPUG® is a Registered Trade Mark and Registered Community Trade Mark of Best Practice User Group Ltd. IIBA®, the IIBA® logo, BABOK® and Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® are registered trademarks owned by International Institute of Business Analysis. QA is an endorsed education provider of IIBA. IIBA® is a registered trademark owned by International Institute of Business Analysis. The Open Group Certification logo is a trademark and the word TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. QA Limited is an Accredited TOGAF® 9 Training Course and complies with the accreditation requirements for The Open Group TOGAF® Certification for People program. Cisco, the Cisco logo, and Cisco Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. ILM is a trademark of the City and Guilds of London Institute and is used under licence. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. APMG Swirl Agile Project Management Device is a Trade Mark of APM Group Ltd. Salesforce is a trademark of salesforce.com, inc.

All third party trademark rights acknowledged

QA reserves the right to improve the specification and format of its courses for the benefit of its customers without notice to the customer.