senior citizen
12-31-2013, 05:48 AM
CONTEMPLATION FOR JANUARY 1, 2014
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
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
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. ~Mark Twain
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
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 new oath holds pretty well; but… when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retrying of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.
~Mark Twain, speech in New York City, 31 March 1885
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, Little Gidding
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
"Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle." – Eric Zorn
I made no resolutions for the New Year.
The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. ~Ana�s Nin
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, 1850
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
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
A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. ~Author Unknown
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
Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time. ~Jean Paul Richter
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~Benjamin Franklin
Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. ~Author Unknown
New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. ~Charles Lamb
HAPPY 2014
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
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
Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. ~Mark Twain
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
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 new oath holds pretty well; but… when it is become old, and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retrying of its remains, it ceases to be serviceable; any little strain will snap it.
~Mark Twain, speech in New York City, 31 March 1885
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, Little Gidding
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
"Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle." – Eric Zorn
I made no resolutions for the New Year.
The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. ~Ana�s Nin
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, 1850
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
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
A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. ~Author Unknown
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
Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time. ~Jean Paul Richter
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~Benjamin Franklin
Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits. ~Author Unknown
New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. ~Charles Lamb
HAPPY 2014