Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled.

—Charles Wesley

Trees, when they are lopped and cut, grow up again … but men, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered.

—Plutarch

 

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

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

New Year’s Eve is like every 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.

—Hamilton Wright Mabie

Every man should be born again 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.

—Henry Ward Beecher

And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible

—Harry to Sally (from the film When Harry Met Sally

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

—Thomas Mann

Glory to God in highest heaven,

Who unto man His Son hath given;

While angels sing with tender mirth,

A glad new year to all the earth.

—Martin Luther