67 New Year Thoughts Quotes to Reflect

There’s a certain weight to the thoughts we carry into a new year.

You’re balancing the memories of everything that happened with the excitement of everything that hasn’t started yet.

Giving yourself the space to process those thoughts is where your true strength comes from.

It’s about honoring where you’ve been while looking forward.

These new year thoughts quotes remind you that every reflection is a step toward a more intentional and grounded life.

Contents show

Reflections on New Beginnings

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” — T.S. Eliot

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” — J.P. Morgan

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” — T.S. Eliot

“The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.” — Josiyah Martin

“Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach

“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” — Jonathan Lockwood Huie

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” — Plato

“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” — Meister Eckhart

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” — Buddha

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” — Seneca

“Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy… shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” — Helen Keller

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” — Tom Peters

“Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress.” — Charles Kettering

“New Year’s Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach

“To make an end is to make a beginning.” — T.S. Eliot

“Tonight’s December thirty-first, something is about to burst… Duck! Here comes another year!” — Ogden Nash

“Finish each day and be done with it… Tomorrow is a new day.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thoughts on Personal Growth

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George 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 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

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.” — Cavett Robert

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” — Nido Qubein

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” — Paulo Coelho

“Growth is the only evidence of life.” — John Henry Newman

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes… you are making new things… learning, living…” — Neil Gaiman

“All of us every single year, we’re a different person.” — Steven Spielberg

“Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.” — Jonathan Edwards

“If you asked me for my New Year Resolution, it would be to find out who I am.” — Cyril Cusack

“In our perfect ways… we are here. Happy New Year’s. Let’s make it ours.” — Beyoncé

“New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.” — James Agate

Perspective and Wisdom

“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

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” — Brad Paisley

“New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.” — Charles Lamb

“What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.” — Vern McLellan

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.” — Melody Beattie

“Each year’s regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the New Year.” — John R. Dallas Jr.

“Each day is a new life to a wise man.” — Dale Carnegie

“Every man should be born again on the first of January. Start with a fresh page.” — Henry Ward Beecher

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity.” — Edith Lovejoy Pierce

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’” — Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Ring out the old, ring in the new.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Ring out the false, ring in the true.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson

“And suns grow meek… and the year smiles as it draws near its death.” — William Cullen Bryant

“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

“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

“To the old, long life and treasure; to the young, all health and pleasure.” — Ben Jonson

On Resolutions and Action

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

“How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.” — Henry Moore

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” — Abraham Lincoln

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” — Socrates

“The future depends on what you do today.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Unless a commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.” — Peter F. Drucker

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another…” — Goran Persson

“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

“Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year.” — Melody Beattie