New Year in quotations

1. ‘Hope smiles from the threshold...

Alfred Tennyson

...of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'.

2. ‘An optimist stays up...

Bill Vaughan

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...until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.‘

3. ‘New Year's Eve is like every...

Hamilton Wright Mabie

...other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.’

4. ‘He who breaks a resolution...

FM Knowles

...is a weakling; he who makes one is a fool.’

5. ‘Every man should be born again...

Henry Ward Beecher

...on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.’

6. ‘Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.‘

Mark Twain

7. ‘Last year's words belong...

TS Eliot

...to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice.’

8. ‘Life can only be understood...

Soren Kierkegaard

...backwards; but it must be lived forwards.’

9. ‘Yesterday, everybody smoked...

Mark Twain

...his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever.’

10. ‘Be always at war with your vices...

Benjamin Franklin

...at peace with your neighbours, and let each new year find you a better man.’