Lines for a New Year card, a midnight toast or the first post of January. Tennyson's Ring Out, Wild Bells and the first verse of Auld Lang Syne are here, along with shorter lines about fresh starts: Anne Shirley on a new day with no mistakes in it yet, Laozi on the journey that begins with a single step, and Stevenson on travelling hopefully. Ambrose Bierce adds a sceptical definition of the future for anyone tired of resolutions. Every passage is public domain and copied word for word from the original book.
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,The flying cloud, the frosty light:The year is dying in the night;Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.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.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And never brought to mind?Should auld acquaintance be forgot,And auld lang syne!Chorus.—For auld lang syne, my dear,For auld lang syne.We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,For auld lang syne.
Marilla, isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.
“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them.”
The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.
Things do not change; we change.
To fill the hour,—that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line,Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
O, Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith, "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!"
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’We are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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