New Year

New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one. Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner, and the 1st day of January is often marked as a national holiday.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. There is no more meaningful time than the beginning of a new year to hear these words of blessing. ~ Pope Francis

It’s important that, as we begin the New Year, look forward... We should project our intention ahead, so that we make this year a meaningful one... If an individual were to make conscious intention to live his or her life with a sense of purpose, live it in a good way, then the ripple effect of that really spreads. First, from the individual to the family, then to the community… and so on. This is how society gets changed and effected. ~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

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

Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering ‘It Will Be Happier' ~ Alfred Tennyson

Quotes

• 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. Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction. What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed? What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life? What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career? Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go. 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, The Language of Letting Go: Daily Meditations on Codependency (1990)

• The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
  • G.K. Chesterton, A Chesterton calendar Compiled from the Writings of G.K.C. (1911)

• I pray you to forgive Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten. And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
  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 in Four Quartets, "Little Gidding" (1942)

• The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. There is no more meaningful time than the beginning of a new year to hear these words of blessing.
  • Pope Francis New Year Messages, National Catholic Register (January 2015)

• It’s important that, as we begin the New Year, look forward... We should project our intention ahead, so that we make this year a meaningful one.... When you look back… how would you think about the year that you have spent? Would you have a sense of contentment, saying that ‘I have lived that year well. I have served the purpose of that year.’? Or would you be looking back with a sense of regret for all the troubles you have caused?
  • Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama Dalai Lama releases New Year’s message, by Lilly Greenblatt, Lion's Roar (2 January 2018)

• We spend January 1st 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 quoted in The Time Wall (2 January 2017)

• 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, Does God Want Us to Be Happy (2013)

• I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year. This is always a hopeful time, as we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. And while 2009 was difficult for many Americans, we must also look back on this year with the knowledge that brighter days are ahead of us – that although our challenges are great, each of us has the courage and determination to rise up and meet them.
  • Barack Obama, A Message for the New Year from the President, The White House, (31 December 2009)

• If this life of ours be a good glad thing, why should we make us merry Because a year of it is gone? but Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come Whispering ‘It will be happier
  • Alfred Tennyson, The Foresters, Act I (1892)

• 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, Ring Out, Wild Bells, (1850)

• May 2021 be the year of awakening and real bold change. And let's all continue the never-ending fight for the living planet.
  • Greta Thunberg, Greta Thunberg sends New Year greetings to fans with powerful message, India Today, (1 January 2021)

• 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. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community.
  • Mark Twain Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, (Jan. 1863)

• 2020 leaves behind much debris — pain, fear, broken lives, smashed dreams... Governments have stupendous powers that they hitherto chose not to use, deferring to the exorbitant power of Big Business. Yes, the money-tree does exist after all. Except, of course, that is only harvested by the powerful on behalf of the oligarchy: Money created by the rich for the rich. Solvency is a political decision because power-politics, not markets, decide who is bankrupt and who is not. Wealth has nothing to do with hard work or entrepreneurship. America’s billionaires made 931 billion dollars from the pandemic. They got richer in their sleep...
  Yes, 2020 was a vintage year for capitalists, but capitalism died! Liberated from any remaining competition, colossal platform companies like Amazon own everything. Now, it is up to us to make 2021 a year of radical change in the interests of the many. Happy New Year and carpe diem...
  • Yanis Varoufakis , A festive message on behalf of DiEM25 for 2021, (31 December 2020)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on New Year on Wikipedia
• Media related to New Year on Wikimedia Commons