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76 Best New Year Quotes to Start Your Year Off Right

These words of wisdom will inspire you to start fresh on Jan. 1.

Young woman playing with sparklers on the street at night
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The start of a new year is the most exciting and hopeful time on the calendar. As Jan. 1 approaches, many of us reflect on things we're thankful for and those we want to change in the future. Maybe your resolution is to pick up a new language, try some rock climbing, or join the new yoga studio down the street. No matter what self-improvements you want to make over the next 12 months, take advantage of the inspiration that comes with the beginning of the new year to get it rolling. To get you even more excited about all the possibilities the new year will bring, we've rounded up the 76 best New Year quotes for starting your year off right.

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Inspirational New Year Quotes

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice." \u2014 T.S. Eliot Best Life
  1. "Each year's regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the new year." — John R. Dallas Jr.
  2. "New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours." — Alex Morritt
  3. "New beginnings are in order, and you are bound to feel some level of excitement as new chances come your way." — Auliq Ice
  4. "Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start." — Nido Qubein
  5. "New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery." — Sarah Ban Breathnach
  6. "Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." — Carl Beard
  7. "The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written." — Melody Beattie
  8. "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice." — T.S. Eliot
  9. "Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties." — Helen Keller
  10. "Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas." — Charles Kettering
  11. "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.'" — Alfred Lord Tennyson
  12. "Whatever it is you're scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever." — Neil Gaiman
  13. “In order to be successful in the new year, stay focused, develop a positive attitude, and be passionate with your dreams.” — Bamigboye Olurotimi
  14. "Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each year find you a better man." — Benjamin Franklin
  15. "What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't even happened yet." — Anne Frank
  16. "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." — William E. Vaughan
  17. "Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but the ability to start over." — F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Beautiful Quotes About the New Year

"Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day." \u2014 Michael JosephsonBest Life
  1. "Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over." — Guy Finley
  2. "Every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all of our lives." — Steven Spielberg
  3. "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." — Dan Millman
  4. "You gotta find your best self and when you do, you gotta hold on to it for dear life." — Cheryl Strayed
  5. “I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.” — Neil Gaiman
  6. "And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings." — Meister Eckhart
  7. "If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello." — Paulo Coelho
  8. "As this New Year approaches, find inspiration around you, and motivation within you, to be all that you can be." — Kate Summers
  9. "Midnight on New Year's Eve is a unique kind of magic where, just for a moment, the past and the future exist at once in the present." — Hillary DePiano
  10. "Don't go into the new year holding a grudge from last year. Leave the hurts and disappointments behind." — Joel Osteen
  11. "The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul." G.K. Chesterton
  12. "Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day." — Michael Josephson
  13. "New Year = A New Life! Decide today who you will become, what you will give how you will live." — Tony Robbins
  14. “Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” — Oprah Winfrey
  15. "We all need a fresh start every year. It's important that we go into the New Year with an open mind and a new way of thinking." — Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

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Funny Quotes About the New Year

"Making New Year resolutions is one thing. Remaining resolute and seeing them through is quite another.\u201d \u2014 Alex MorrittBest Life
  1. "May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early. My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue so that I triumph even when I fall." — Aleister Crowley
  2. "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." — Billy Crystal
  3. "Out with the old, in with the new' is a fitting expression for a holiday that is based on vomiting."
  4. “New Year's Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive.” — Jay Leno
  5. "To the old, long life and treasure; to the young, all health and pleasure." — Ben Jonson
  6. “May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.” — Joey Adams
  7. “Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.” — William E. Vaughn
  8. "New year, old you." — A.D. Aliwat
  9. "I can't believe it's been a year since I didn't become a better person." — Unknown
  10. “Many years ago, I made a New Year's resolution to never make New Year's resolutions. Hell, it's been the only resolution I've ever kept!” — D.S. Mixell
  11. “I would say happy New Year but it’s not happy, it’s exactly the same as last year except colder.” — Robert Clark
  12. “Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty.” — John Selden

Andy Borowitz

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Quotes About New Year's Resolutions

\u201cMay all your troubles last as long as your New Year\u2019s resolutions.\u201d \u2014 Joey AdamsBest Life
  1. "Let our New Year's resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word." — Göran Persson
  2. "I want to make a New Year's prayer, not a resolution. I'm praying for courage." — Susan Sontag
  3. “We 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.” — Edith Lovejoy Pierce
  4. “One resolution I have made and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.” — John Burroughs
  5. “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” — Oscar Wilde
  6. "Making New Year resolutions is one thing. Remaining resolute and seeing them through is quite another.” — Alex Morritt
  7. "He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool." — F.M. Knowles
  8. "A worthy New Year's resolution, perhaps, is to take no hatred into the New Year without requiring it to restate its purpose." — Robert Brault
  9. "Every year you make a resolution to change yourself. This year, make a resolution to be yourself." — Unknown
  10. “Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” — Cavett Roberts
  11. “New Year’s resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.” — James Agate
  12. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” — Abraham Lincoln

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Short New Year's Quotes

"And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been." \u2014 Rainer Maria RilkeBest Life
  1. "Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one." — Brad Paisley
  2. "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." — John D. Rockefeller
  3. "With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts." — Eleanor Roosevelt
  4. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams." — Henry David Thoreau
  5. "Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right." — Oprah Winfrey
  6. "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. "And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been." — Rainer Maria Rilke
  8. "Celebrate what you want to see more of." — Tom Peters
  9. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." — Neale Donald Walsch
  10. “This year's book, at midnight, turns to footnote in the next.” — Terri Guillemets
  11. "The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." — Michael Altshuler
  12. "You will never win if you never begin." — Helen Rowland
  13. "Let all the failures of your past year be your best guide in the New Year." — Mehmet Murat Ildan
  14. “New year is the glittering light to brighten the dream-lined pathway of future.” — Munia Khan
  15. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." — C.S. Lewis
  16. "New Year's Day is every man's birthday." — Charles Lamb
  17. "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past." — Thomas Jefferson
  18. "I close my eyes to old ends. And open my heart to new beginnings." — Nick Frederickson
  19. "Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing." — Sarah Ban Breathnach
  20. "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." — Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wrapping Up

That's it for our list of New Year quotes, but be sure to check back with us soon for more ways to prepare for the year ahead. You can also sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on what's coming next!

Sources referenced in this article

A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals