Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart.
Ellen GoodmanWe spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives, not looking for flaws, but for potential.
Irish Toast
In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, never in want.
T. S. Eliot
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.
Emily Miller
Then sing, young hearts that are full of cheer,
With never a thought of sorrow;
The old goes out, but the glad young year
Comes merrily in tomorrow
Benjamin FranklinBe always at war with your vices,
at peace with your neighbors,
and let each New Year find you a better man.
Edgar A. GuestA happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of a year.
William Arthur Ward
This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!
Edith Lovejoy PierceWe will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
John Greenleaf Whittier
We meet today
To thank Thee for the era done,
And Thee for the opening one
(taken from Quotations.About.com)
