The world today generally celebrates the New Year as beginning on January 1st. However, there are still a number of cultures that have a different New Year although still recognizing that the January date is universally accepted as the start of the year.
These countries include Israel, China, and India where the New Year is also celebrated at the times determined by their calendars.
The New Year date of January 1st is based on the Gregorian calendar which followed the old Roman calendar that determined the order of the months and was established in 700 BC.
During the Middle Ages in western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, New Year’s Day was variously moved, depending upon locale, to one of several other days, among them: 1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September and 25 December.
In many countries New Year’s day is a public holiday, whilst New Year’s Eve has become associated with partying, excessive drinking, and firework displays.
The quotations below have been selected by our LifeDaily team to give a generally more sober perspective – except for the first and last quotes:
- F. Scott Fitzgerald:
First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
- Phil McGraw:
A year from now, you’re gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.
- Mark Twain:
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
- Melody Beattie:
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.
- Oprah Winfrey:
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
- James Agate:
New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
- Rainer Maria Rilke:
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.
- Hal Borland:
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
- Cavett Robert:
Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson:
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson:
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’
- Tom Peters:
Celebrate what you want to see more of.
- Henry Moore:
I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’.
- Nia Vardalos:
My New Year’s Resolution List usually starts with the desire to lose between ten and three thousand pounds.
- James Lafferty:
My New Year’s resolution is to stick to a good workout plan that will keep me healthy and happy.
It is also traditional for people to make resolutions for the New Year. Unfortunately, the majority of them are rarely kept beyond the first week.
Do you make New Year resolutions? Do you keep them for the year? How do you celebrate on New Years’ Eve?
Share your thoughts by making use of the comments feed below.
