10 quotes to recharge your batteries

Everybody knows that leaders are optimists.

Here are nine quotations and a little story for when your glass drops to the halfway mark.

1. “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.” — Kahlil Gibran

2. “The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress and grows brave by reflection.” — Thomas Paine

3. “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

4. “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.” — James Branch Cabell

5. “Optimism is the foundation of courage.” — Nicholas Murray Butler

6. “A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.” — Harry Truman

7. “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” — Colin Powell

8. “For myself I am an optimist—it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” — Winston Churchill

9. “You see things and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream of things that never were and I say ‘Why not?’” — George Bernard Shaw

10. Two boys come across an empty barn smelling of manure. The first boy says, “Let’s get out of here. This stinks.” The second says, “Wow! There must be horses around.”

— Adapted from “My 10 Favorite ‘Half-Full’ Quotes (Reprised),” Terry Starbucker, www.terrystarbucker.com.