New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make
your regular annual good resolutions.
your regular annual good resolutions.
Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.
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The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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People are so worried about what they eat between the New Year,
but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year
And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently
pass'dWere as harsh as a prejudiced jury -Still,
and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings
considerably shorter than ever.
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People are so worried about what they eat between the New Year,
but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year
And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently
pass'dWere as harsh as a prejudiced jury -Still,
fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
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The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
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Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go,
for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.
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Each age has deemed the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.
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Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw
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Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw
on a bank where they have no account.
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Glory to God in highest heaven, Who unto man His Son hath given;
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While angels sing with tender mirth, A glad new year to all the earth.
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A new oath holds pretty well; but... when it is become old,
and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains,
it ceases to be serviceable;
any little strain will snap it.
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But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty?
I live according to twenty-year-old habits.
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I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on
New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve,
smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.
Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea
as you can't eat rationally but really
need to be free to consume whatever is necessary,
moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover.
I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions
began generally on January the second.
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New Year's Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot.
Unless, of course,
those tests come back positive.
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We meet todayTo thank Thee for the era done,
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and frayed out, and damaged by a dozen annual retryings of its remains,
it ceases to be serviceable;
any little strain will snap it.
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But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty?
I live according to twenty-year-old habits.
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New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve,
smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system.
Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea
as you can't eat rationally but really
need to be free to consume whatever is necessary,
moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover.
I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions
began generally on January the second.
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Unless, of course,
those tests come back positive.
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We meet todayTo thank Thee for the era done,
And Thee for the opening one.
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One resolution I have made, and try always to keep,
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is this: To rise above the little things.
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Of all sound of all bells... most solemn and touching is
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the peal which rings out the Old Year.
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A happy New Year! Grant that IMay bring no tear to
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A happy New Year! Grant that IMay bring no tear to
any eyeWhen this New Year in time shall endLet it be said I've played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year.
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It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets.
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We spend January 1 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.
EnglishMay all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions.
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Time has no divisions to mark its passage,
there is never a thunder-storm or blare of
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
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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.
EnglishMay all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions.
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there is never a thunder-storm or blare of
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 off pistols.
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I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans
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, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life,
is too much of a daily event for me.
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New Year's is a harmless annual institution,
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of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for
promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.
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Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time.
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