Holidays & Occasions New Year's 77 New Years Quotes To Ring In New Beginnings New year, new caption (please). Here are the best quotes for the new year. By Rachel Mulcahy and Nellah Bailey McGough Nellah Bailey McGough Nellah McGough runs the day-to-day operations in the Southern Living Birmingham office, responds to reader questions and comments, manages freelancer contracts, and invoices. She is also the co-host (with Steve Bender) of Ask Grumpy Podcast. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Updated on December 14, 2023 Close Photo: AleksandarNakic / Getty Images With a new year comes an entire social media feed full of "new year, new me" captions and halfhearted attempts at meaningful resolutions. As the year draws to a close, we're going to rely on the eloquent (and funny) words of others to cap off an eventful year. These New Year quotes capture the stress, heartache, great times, and good memories we shared throughout the year. From inspirational and funny to heartwarming and soulful, our favorite New Year quotes will give you hope (or the perfect New Year's Eve Instagram caption) to kick off the new year. We can hope it's a brighter, happier, more joyful year. But, let's also remember that it'll only be what we make of it. So whether you need a good laugh, a little inspiration, or some wisdom, these New Year quotes will help you start the new year on a good note. Cheers to a new year and a better us. 01 of 04 Inspirational New Year Quotes Southern Living "On New Year's Eve the whole world celebrates the fact that a date changes. Let us celebrate the dates on which we change the world." —Akilnathan Logeswaran"Ring out the old, ring in the new / Ring, happy bells, across the snow: / The year is going, let him go; / Ring out the false, ring in the true." —Alfred Lord Tennyson"Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one." —Brad Paisley"For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice." —T.S. Eliot"Be at war with your vices, at Peace with your neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better man." —Benjamin Franklin"The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals." —Melody Beattie"We 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." —Ellen Goodman"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things." —Rainer Maria Rilke"In the New Year, never forget to thank to your past years because they enabled you to reach today! Without the stairs of the past, you cannot arrive at the future!" —Mehmet Murat Ildan"As the old year retires and a new one is born, we commit into the hands of our Creator the happenings of the past year and ask for direction and guidance in the new one. May He grant us His grace, His tranquility and His wisdom!" —Peggy Toney Horton"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." —Hal Borland"New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours." —Alex Morritt"We should celebrate every year that we made it through and every year that we're happier and healthier." —Ellen DeGeneres"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"New years will keep coming in our lives as long as we live, but how do we manage to live with prosperity in that every new year and help others around us do the same? Isn't that what we should plan and celebrate? So, let's celebrate the inception of improved us, not the new year." —Mohith Agadi"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." —Ralph Waldo Emerson“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.” —Karen Kaiser Clark“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.” —Francis Bacon Sr."This year, be structured enough for success and achievement and flexible enough for creativity and fun." —Taylor Duvall“Cheers to a gracious New Year. May we uphold the fullness of God’s grace, goodness and goodwill.” ―Lailah Gifty Akita"Approach the new year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day." —Michael Josephson"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” —Eleanor Roosevelt“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” —Albert Einstein“Plant seeds every single day that you know who you are, you know what you’re about and you know what goals you’ve set for yourself.” —Stephen Curry“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” —Pablo Picasso“I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” —Simone Biles“Life’s not about expecting, hoping and wishing; it’s about doing, being and becoming.” —Mike Dooley“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” —J.P. Morgan“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.” —Henry David Thoreau“Each year's regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the New Year.” ―John R. Dallas Jr.“We wait for the new year to appear to us like the hopeful sun bringing aspiring light to an eager world.” ―Munia Khan“Last year told you what you needed to know. This year is go time!" ―Richie Norton 02 of 04 Funny New Year Quotes Southern Living "You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I'm only going to dread one day at a time." —Charlie Brown"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to." —Bill Vaughan"Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average…which means, you have met your New Year's resolution." —Jay Leno"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"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 Resolutions 1. To refrain from saying witty, unkind things, unless they are really witty and irreparably damaging. 2. To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time." —James Agate“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“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!” —Joey Adams"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"My New Year's Resolution List usually starts with the desire to lose between ten and three thousand pounds. In the middle, I list career goals and coveted shoes. Somewhere near the end I'll add something about donating more often to charity and reducing my carbon footprint. I start out with good intentions but by mid-January, the list will be stuck to my cheek because I napped on it as I watched fit people exercise on cable TV." —Nia Vardalos"He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; he who makes one is a fool." —F.M. Knowles“If you decide to cut something out this year, try replacing it with something else to balance out the loss. If you stop drinking soda, for example, replace it with becoming more sedentary. You deserve it. You loved soda.” ―Colin Nissan 03 of 04 New Year Resolution Quotes Southern Living "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"Have your new year's resolutions been a new beginning for you or have they just been different words on the same old beginning? Maybe now's the time to establish a new pattern of viewing your life fresh." —Mary Anne Radmacher"Make New Year's goals. Dig within and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come." —Melody Beattie"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." —Oscar Wilde"What do you need in the New Year? You need a dream; your dream needs an action; and your action needs right thinking! Without right thinking, you can have only unrealized dreams!" —Mehmet Murat Ildan"This year, let's take ownership of our lives and pursue our goals by taking 100 percent responsibility for their realization." —Richie Norton"Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed." —Cavett Robert“For a change, don't add new things in your life as a new year's resolution. Instead, do more of what's already working for you and stop doing things that are time-waste.” ―Salil Jha 04 of 04 Quotes About New Beginnings Southern Living "Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right." —Oprah Winfrey"Another fresh new year is here . . .Another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, To love and laugh and give!" —William Arthur Ward"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"Any new beginning is forged from the shards of the past, not from the abandonment of the past." —Craig D. Lounsbrough"Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings." —Jonathan Huie"There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." —C.S. Lewis"Each New Year, we have before us a brand new book containing 365 blank pages. Let us fill them with all the forgotten things from last year—the words we forgot to say, the love we forgot to show, and the charity we forgot to offer." —Peggy Toney Horton“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis“Every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all of our lives.”—Steven Spielberg“New Year's Day is every man's birthday.” —Charles Lamb“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” —Carl Bard“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” —Socrates“As the year comes to a close, it is a time for reflection—a time to release old thoughts and beliefs and forgive old hurts. Whatever has happened in the past year, the New Year brings fresh beginnings. Exciting new experiences and relationships await. Let us be thankful for the blessings of the past and the promise of the future.” ―Peggy Toney Horton“The priceless lesson in the New Year is that endings birth beginnings and beginnings birth endings. And in this elegantly choreographed dance of life, neither ever find an end in the other.”―Craig D. Lounsbrough"Another fresh new year is here . . . Another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, To love and laugh and give!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!I have the opportunity Once more to right some wrongs, To pray for peace, to plant a tree, And sing more joyful songs!" —William Arthur Ward“The attraction of New Year is this: The year changes, and in that change we believe that we can change with it. It is far more difficult, however, to change yourself than turn the calendar to a new page.” ― R. Joseph Hoffmann"I close my eyes to old ends. And open my heart to new beginnings.” —Nick Frederickson“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” —George Eliot“I hope you realize that every day is a fresh start for you. That every sunrise is a new chapter in your life waiting to be written.” —Juansen Dizon“Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas.” —Charles Kettering“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” —Eleanor Roosevelt“When you’re young, you’re encouraged to try new things. At a certain age, nobody says that to you anymore. If you’re lucky enough to be alive, why not say yes to all of it at any age?” —Mary Steenburgen“Never underestimate the power you have to take your life in a new direction.” —Germany Kent"Another New Year's dawned, new opportunities and difficulties are sneaking around you. To take hold of good and let go bad, face the new challenges and open the new chances to anew your life again." —Lord Robin Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit