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

—Bill Vaughan

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

—Benjamin Franklin

No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.

—Charles Lamb

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.

—Oprah Winfrey

The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.

—George William Curtis

New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

—Mark Twain

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.

—John Burroughs

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; he who makes one is a fool.

—F.M. Knowles

Why won’t they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, can’t they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping — rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas — But, goodness, why need they do it?

—John Dos Passos

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.

—T.S. Eliot