Famous writers and the New Year

By: Esther Lombardi
Translation: Telegrafi.com

New Year's Eve is all about reflecting on the year that has passed and planning for the year to come. We gather with friends new and old, and set goals that may or may not extend beyond January. One wonderful way that humanity has discovered to commemorate the night of the new year is by writing about this annual holiday, creating quotes like the ones quoted below.

As Sir Walter Scott says:

Every age has thought that the newborn year / Is the most appropriate time for festive joy.

So celebrate your New Year by reading these quotes from famous authors, like John Burroughs and Mark Twain, which explore everything from the ancient tradition of setting temporary goals to the importance of starting each year - and even each day - with a fresh approach to life.

As TS Eliot says in [the poem] Little-Giding [Little gidding]:

Last year's words belong to last year's language / And next year's words await another voice. / And to finish something is to begin.

Quotes about New Year's goals

The most popular New Year's tradition in the United States is that of setting goals for the coming year, promising yourself to eat less candy or exercise regularly, only to break that promise a few months later - as Helen Fielding famously put it in Bridget Jones's Diary [Bridget Jones's Diary]:

I guess technically, New Year's resolutions can't be expected to start on January 1st, right? Because since it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already smoking and can't be expected to stop suddenly after midnight with so much nicotine in their system. Also, dieting on New Year's Day is not a good idea, as you can't eat sensibly, but you really should have the freedom to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, to relieve the headache from the night before. I think it would be much more reasonable for resolutions, in general, to start on January 2nd.

Some, like André Gide, also approach the idea of ​​objectives with humor:

But can you still set goals when you're over forty? I live by twenty-year-old habits.

Others, like Ellen Goodman, are quite optimistic about real change:

We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, making a list of chores to do, of cracks to fix. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we should walk through the rooms of our lives ... looking not for flaws, but for potential.

Several times during his career as a writer and public speaker, Mark Twain described these goals with a touch of disdain. He famously wrote:

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, with no particular benefit to anyone except as a sacrifice for debauched drinking, friendly visits, and false resolutions.

On another occasion, Twain wrote:

Yesterday, everyone smoked their last cigars, drank their last drink, and uttered their last curse. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. In thirty days, we will have blown our reforms into the wind and cut back our old shortcomings more than ever before.

Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, took the concept with a grain of salt and wrote humorously:

Good goals are just checks that men draw from a bank where they have no account.

Sayings about new initiatives

Other writers believe in the tradition that New Year's Day is a new beginning or a blank page - in the words of one writer, a new letter or a blank page - and as G.K. Chesterton puts it:

The purpose of the New Year is not to have a new year. It is to have a new soul and a new nose; new legs, a new spine, new ears and new eyes. If a man does not set goals for the New Year, he will never set goals. If a man does not start anything from scratch, he will certainly do nothing useful.

Other writers see the new beginning a little easier than Chesterton, like John Burroughs, who once said:

A decision I have made, and I always try to keep, is this: To rise above the small things.

Or, Benjamin Franklin, who once wrote:

Always be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and may each New Year find you a better person.

Anaïs Nin takes it a step further, saying that every day is a new goal:

I don't have any goals for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, approving, and shaping my life is a very daily occurrence for me.

To pass the time

Some writers focus directly on the idea of ​​the passage of time in their reflections on New Year's Eve traditions. For example, Charles Lamb wrote:

Of all the sounds of all the bells... the most solemn and moving is the ringing that accompanies the end of the Old Year.

The writer Thomas Mann also appreciated the solemnity of the passage of time and the futility of human “bells and fireworks” to celebrate the change of one second to the next - which time cares nothing about:

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there are never storms or trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins, it is only we, mortals, who ring bells and fire pistols.

Two short poems for New Year's Day

Edith Lovejoy Pierce poetically described the first day of the year as follows:

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We will write the words on them. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is “New Year's Day”.

Edgar Guest and Thomas Hood, on the other hand, each wrote a short poem dedicated to the transition from the old year to the new:

Happy New Year! Enable me to
to bring no tears to any eyes,
when this New Year is over.
Let's say I was a friend,
I have lived, loved and worked here,
and from this I created a happy year.
- Edgar Guest

And you, who have faced the onslaught of misfortune,
and you are bowed down to the ground by their fury;
you for whom the twelve months that have just passed
were as harsh as a biased jury -
however, a toast to the Future! and join in our song,
to soothe the regrets of memories,
and after we have received a new test of time,
Let's cheer with the hope of a better twelfth grade.

/Telegraph/