You’ve made it to December, and it’s party time. As the New Year’s countdown begins, the ball drops, and that midnight kiss that you hoped for becomes a reality, you pause for a moment of reflection on the past 365 days of your life. Whether you’re beyond thrilled to see some difficult moments well behind you or are feeling sentimental recalling the good times had, such ruminations on the year gone by have you waxing poetic. Only a frog’s got your throat. Whether you stand before a party of 50 friends with bubbly in hand, grasping for the words to express how you feel, or find yourself staring at an Instagram post in the making with a blinking cursor on an empty caption—words seem to have failed you at this moment. We’re here to help.
Looking for something short and sweet? A tastefully turned phrase about new opportunities is bound to leave everyone in good spirits. Thinking about imparting a deep thought with a comical edge? Pull from Brad Paisley’s exemplary book metaphor with a witty wisecrack to follow. Prefer to share something more modish? Our perennially relevant poet friend Ralph Waldo Emerson has you covered with a simple quip about making each day the best day of the year. Whatever words of wisdom you choose to recount, these 65 New Year’s quotes are sure to help you exude impressive charisma and fabulous oratorical prowess. As for the delivery, we’ll leave that part to you.
New Year’s Quotes About Happiness
- “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “It’s never too late—never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.” —Jane Fonda
- “Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” —Jonathan Huie
- “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” —Tom Peters
- “In our perfect ways, in the ways we are beautiful, in the ways we are human—we are here. Happy New Year’s. Let’s make it ours.” —Beyoncé
New Year’s Quotes About Possibilities
- “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
- “Any new beginning is forged from the shards of the past, not from the abandonment of the past.” —Craig Lounsbrough
- “The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.” —Josiyah Martin
- “You are never too old to reinvent yourself.” —Steve Harvey
- “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice.” —T.S. Eliot
New Year’s Quotes About Change
- “Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder—no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen—things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” —Candace Bushnell
- “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” — E.E. Cummings
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy; not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” —Dan Millman
- “The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.” —Melody Beattie
- “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” —Winston Churchill
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New Year’s Quotes About Gratitude
- “I don’t care if we have our house, or a cliff ledge, or a cardboard box. Home is wherever we all are, together.” —James Patterson
- “Your present circ*mstances don’t determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start.” —Nido Qubein
- “Enter this new year with gratitude for this new chance to create your dreams.” —Avina Celeste
- “You can find inspiration in everything. If you can’t, then you’re not looking properly.” —Paul Smith
- “And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” —John Steinbeck
New Year’s Quotes About the Past
- “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”
—Pascal Mercier - “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” —Thomas Jefferson
- “You can get excited about the future; the past won’t mind.” — Hilary DePiano
- “Past and Present I know well; each is a friend and sometimes an enemy to me. But it is the quiet, beckoning Future, an absolute stranger, with whom I have fallen madly in love.” —Richelle E. Goodrich
- “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” —Joseph Campbell
New Year’s Quotes About Potential
- “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…we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.” —Ellen Goodman
- “I think the more unexpected something is, the more there is to learn from it.” —Michael J. Fox
- “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” —Mary Oliver
- “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” —David Bowie
- “The sky isn’t the limit—the sky has no limit.” —Sarah Barker
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New Year's Quotes About Loved Ones
- “Home is where you are loved the most and act the worst.” —Marjorie Pay Hinckley
- “There are more people doing good stuff and moving us forward than there are people sowing division. I surround myself with people who have faith.” —Maria Shriver
- “You don’t have to be perfect to help people. All you have to be is real.” —Trent Sheldon
- “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “We’re at our best when we support each other. Not when we cancel each other out for our past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow.” —Joaquin Phoenix
New Year’s Quotes About Self-Care
- “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are…just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” —L.M. Montgomery
- “I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” —Arthur Rubenstein
- “What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.” —Vern McLellan
- “Remove ‘shoulds’ from your vocabulary this year. Start your journey of self-love now.” —Kelly Martin
- “Don’t wait your turn. Bet on yourself and have the confidence to stand up and say, ‘My time is now.’” —Robert F. Smith
New Year’s Quotes About Home
- “The home should be the treasure chest of living.” —Le Corbusier
- “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.” —James Baldwin
- “Home is where one starts from.” —T.S. Eliot
- “He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his own home.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “Where thou art, that is home.” —Emily Dickinson
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New Year’s Quotes About Resolutions
- “Your success and happiness lie in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” —Helen Keller
- “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” —Oscar Wilde
- “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
- “Making New Year resolutions is one thing. Remaining resolute and seeing them through is quite another.” —Alex Morritt
- “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis
Neil Gaiman
“Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” —Neil Gaiman
Brad Paisley
“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one. —Brad Paisley
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Auliq Ice
“A soul of hospitality and a heart of humanity is a house of love, peace, freedom, liberty and justice.” —Auliq Ice
Jane Austen
“There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.” —Jane Austen
Winston Churchill
“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of humans, are created, strengthened and maintained.” —Winston Churchill
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Sarah Ban Breathnach
“Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.” —Sarah Ban Breathnach
Edith Sitwell
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” —Edith Sitwell
Cindy Morgan
“The simplest things in life give me the most pleasure: cooking a good meal, enjoying my friends.” —Cindy Morgan
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bo Bennett
“Spend some time this weekend on home improvement; improve your attitude toward your family.” —Bo Bennett
Rachel Silva
Assistant Digital Editor
Rachel Silva, the Assistant Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, covers design, architecture, trends, and anything to do with haute couture. She has previously written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Citywire.
