New Year Quotes 2027: 13 Traced to the Source, Plus 53 Short Lines to Send

On the first day of January 1660, a 26-year-old navy clerk named Samuel Pepys opened a new notebook and wrote: "Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold." It is a very ordinary New Year's sentence, half thanks and half health report, and it began one of the most famous diaries in English. Good new year quotes still work the same way. The ones people keep are rarely grand; they sound like someone being honest at the turn of the calendar.

The short answer: the best new year quotes for 2027 are short, true to the source and easy to make your own. Five you can use right now, each traced below:

• "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1870)
• "Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" (Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, 1908)
• "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, / For auld lang syne." (Robert Burns, 1788)
• "So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you!" (Charles Dickens, 1844)
• "No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference." (Charles Lamb, 1823)

This page has 13 quotes checked word for word against the original books, letters and newspapers, each with the story behind it, plus 53 short lines our editors wrote for cards, texts and captions. The quotes are grouped by the moment you need them: midnight, friends, a fresh start, resolutions, a hard year.

New Year 2027 at a Glance

Moment	Date
New Year's Eve	Thursday, December 31, 2026
New Year's Day (US federal holiday)	Friday, January 1, 2027
First weekend of the year	January 2–3, 2027
Still fine to say "Happy New Year"	Roughly the first two weeks of January

Because New Year's Day falls on a Friday, most offices close for a three-day weekend. That makes Thursday afternoon the natural time for work messages and the evening for everyone else.

Which Line Fits Which Moment

You need a line for…	Start with
A midnight toast	Burns, "cup o' kindness"
A friend far away	Burns, "seas between us"
A card to family	Dickens, The Chimes
Your own journal on January 1	Emerson or Pepys
A kid, or anyone who had a messy year	Anne of Green Gables
A laugh about resolutions	Mark Twain, 1863
Someone grieving	Tennyson, "Ring out the grief"

At Midnight: Bells, Toasts and Auld Lang Syne

Most New Year's Eve traditions in English come down to two sounds: bells and one Scottish song. Both have a writer behind them.

"But the birth of a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference."

— Charles Lamb, "New Year's Eve," Essays of Elia (1823)

Lamb's essay opens by saying every person has two birthdays: their own, and January 1, which belongs to everyone. "Pretermitted" just means skipped. In the same paragraph he calls the bells that ring out the Old Year the most "solemn and touching" of all sounds. It's a good line for a party invitation or a toast, because it says what everyone in the room is feeling: nobody ignores this night.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?"

"We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, / For auld lang syne."

— Robert Burns, "Auld Lang Syne" (1788)

Burns sent the song to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, calling it "an old song, of the olden times," which he said he had taken down from an old man's singing. His later editors concluded that, save for a line or two, the song is his own. "Auld lang syne" means roughly "old long since," the days gone by. The second line is the one to put in a card: a cup of kindness is exactly what a New Year's toast is supposed to be.

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Burns's song is so tied to midnight now that it is easy to forget the rest of it. Seven lines for the moment the clock turns, written by our editors:

• Here's to old friends, new chances and one more cup of kindness. Happy New Year.
• Ten, nine, eight… and every one of them with you. Happy 2027.
• Raise a glass to the year that made us, and another to the one that's coming.
• Midnight, a kiss and a clean calendar. Happy New Year, my love.
• To the people in this room: you were the best part of 2026.
• Out with the old, in with the people who stayed. Cheers.
• May the bells be loud, the toasts be short and the year be kind.

Happy New Year Quotes for Friends

New Year cards between friends tend to look backward more than forward: the year you shared, the miles between you now. The older writers understood that.

"We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, / Frae morning sun till dine; / But seas between us braid hae roar'd / Sin' auld lang syne."

— Robert Burns, "Auld Lang Syne," third verse (1788)

In modern English: we two paddled in the stream from morning sun till dinnertime, but broad seas have roared between us since those days. It's the verse almost nobody sings at midnight, and it's the best one for a friend who moved away. Send it with one memory of your own "burn," the place you used to waste whole afternoons together.

"Ring in the valiant man and free, / The larger heart, the kindlier hand;"

— Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850)

Tennyson spent seventeen years, from 1833 to 1850, on In Memoriam for his friend Arthur Hallam, who died at 22. The "Ring out, wild bells" section is one of the best-known New Year poems in English, but most collections stop at "ring out the old, ring in the new." These two lines, from near the end, are the warmer ones: a wish for a bigger heart and a kinder hand. They suit a friend who has been both.

Eight lines for friends, by our editors:

• Another year of you answering my 11 p.m. texts. I don't take it for granted. Happy New Year.
• Whatever 2027 brings, I already know who I'm calling first.
• We didn't see each other nearly enough this year. Let's fix that in January. Happy New Year, friend.
• Thank you for the laughs, the advice I ignored and the advice I didn't. Happy New Year.
• Different time zones, same friendship. Happy New Year from my side of the clock.
• Old friends are the best tradition I have. Happy New Year to one of my favorites.
• Here's to more coffee, fewer excuses and at least one trip we actually take.
• You made 2026 lighter. I hope 2027 returns the favor.

For the Whole Family: Dickens's New Year Story

Everyone knows Dickens wrote a Christmas book. Fewer people know he wrote a New Year's one the following winter: The Chimes (1844), subtitled "A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In." Its hero is Toby "Trotty" Veck, a poor London ticket-porter who waits outside a church for errands. On New Year's Eve he meets a homeless laborer, Will Fern, and his little niece, and refuses to leave them in the street.

"The New Year never can be happy to me, if we part like this."

— Trotty Veck in Charles Dickens, The Chimes, Second Quarter (1844)

Trotty says it while holding the stranger's hand, then offers him a bed in his own small home. The line is useful well beyond the story. It works for a family member after an argument, or to make up with anyone before the year ends.

"So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be happier than the last…"

— Charles Dickens, the closing lines of The Chimes (1844)

Dickens ends the book by speaking straight to the reader. It's the best New Year wish for a parent, a teacher or a boss, because it thanks them while it wishes them well: other people's happiness depends on them, and the line says so.

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Seven lines for family, including your son or daughter, by our editors:

• To my son: proud of you, always. Here's to everything 2027 has waiting for you. Happy New Year.
• To my daughter: new year, same rule. Call your mother. Love you. Happy New Year.
• Our family had a full year: loud, busy and ours. Happy New Year to every one of you.
• Mom and Dad, thank you for another year of being the place we all come back to.
• Happy New Year to the family group chat, the most chaotic and most loved thing on my phone.
• Whatever changes this year, our Sunday dinners don't. Happy New Year, all of you.
• To the kids: you grew a lot this year, and so did our love for you. Happy 2027.

For Yourself: A Fresh Start on January 1

A lot of people searching for a New Year quote want one for themselves: a journal, a lock screen, the first page of a planner. These three are about beginning again without pretending to be someone new.

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Works and Days," Society and Solitude (1870)

Emerson wasn't writing about January. His point in "Works and Days" is that people always think the important hour is some other hour, and it isn't; the line just before it reads, "One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour." That makes it a better New Year quote, not a worse one. It warns against waiting for the perfect day to start.

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"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

— Anne Shirley in L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, ch. 21 (1908)

Context makes this one better: Anne has just served the minister's wife a cake she accidentally flavored with liniment instead of vanilla. Marilla answers, "I'll warrant you'll make plenty in it." That's a good line for anyone who had a messy year, kids included, because it's hopeful without promising to be perfect.

Pepys's first entry, quoted at the top, belongs here too. It's a reminder that the first lines of a year don't have to be inspiring. "I'm in good health, and grateful" is a fine way to begin.

Seven lines for your own journal or lock screen, by our editors:

• Same me, better habits. That's the whole plan.
• 2027: less proving, more living.
• I don't need a new me. I need a rested one.
• Page one. Write it slowly.
• This year I'm keeping promises to myself first.
• Grateful for last year. Curious about this one.
• Start where you are. January doesn't care how December went.

The Most Honest Joke About Resolutions

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

— Mark Twain, "New Year's Day," Territorial Enterprise, Virginia City, Nevada (January 1, 1863)

Twain was 27 and a reporter for a newspaper in a silver-mining town. The rest of the piece predicts that the town's new reformers will be back to smoking, drinking and swearing within thirty days, and calls New Year's a "harmless annual institution." "Paving hell" is a nod to the old proverb that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Use it for a friend who makes the same resolution every year. It's affectionate teasing, not a lecture.

Six resolution lines in the same spirit, by our editors:

• My resolution is to keep last year's resolutions. Ambitious, I know.
• New year, new gym membership I'll admire from the couch.
• Resolution: drink more water. Loophole: coffee is mostly water.
• Happy New Year! Your resolutions are due back on January 8.
• This year I'm only making resolutions I've already kept.
• Cheers to the 2027 version of us: same people, slightly better sleep.

When the Old Year Was Hard

Not everyone gets to the end of December cheerful. For someone who lost a person, a job or their health this year, "Happy New Year!" can sting. These three lines leave room for that.

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind, / For those that here we see no more;"

— Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850)

This comes from the same bells poem as above, and Tennyson wrote it as a man still grieving his best friend. He doesn't ask anyone to forget. He asks for the kind of grief that wears a person down to be rung out. For a sympathy note at New Year's, add one sentence of your own: "I'm thinking of you and [name] tonight."

"Old year, you must not die; / You came to us so readily, / You lived with us so steadily, / Old year, you shall not die."

— Alfred Tennyson, "The Death of the Old Year" (first printed 1833)

Here Tennyson writes the old year as a dying friend, someone who "gave me a friend, and a true, true-love." It fits anyone who doesn't want this year to end because of who was in it: the year a parent was still alive, the year the baby was little. It's a quote for a quiet message, not a party.

"They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

— Lamentations 3:23, King James Version (1611)

In the verse just before, the subject is the Lord's compassions, which "fail not." The surprise is where it sits: in the middle of a book of mourning, right after the writer says his hope had perished. That's why it works for a believer who had a terrible year. It speaks of mercy in the middle of the hard part.

Six gentle lines for a hard year, by our editors:

• No pressure to be happy this New Year. I just want you to know I'm here, in 2027 too.
• I know this year took a lot from you. I hope the next one gives some back, slowly.
• Thinking of you and [name] as the year turns. They're not forgotten.
• You got through 2026. That counts for more than anyone says.
• Wishing you a gentle January, one ordinary good day at a time.
• If midnight is hard this year, call me. I'll be awake.

Short New Year Quotes and Captions

For an Instagram post, a story or a text, shorter is better. Twelve under ten words, by our editors:

• Hello, 2027. Be gentle.
• New chapter, same favorite people.
• Ringing it in with the right ones.
• Last sunset of 2026. Grateful.
• Midnight looked good on us.
• A clean page and a full heart.
• 2026: lessons learned. 2027: let's go.
• Here's to us, again.
• The best is yet to come. Probably after coffee.
• One year older, a lot wiser.
• First sunrise of the year, first coffee too.
• Happy New Year from our corner of the world.

Need something for every day after that? Our quote of the day page has a new traced line each morning.

Bonne Année and Other Ways to Say It

A greeting in a friend's family language is a small thing that people remember. Four common ones, with what they actually say:

• French: Bonne année et bonne santé ! means "Happy New Year and good health!" The French usually add the health wish.
• Spanish: ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! means "Happy New Year!" Keep the tilde: año means year, ano means something else.
• German: Frohes neues Jahr! means "Happy New Year!" and is said through the first days of January.
• Scots: Happy Hogmanay! is used on December 31 itself, the night "Auld Lang Syne" is sung.

The "Blank Page" Line and Others We Couldn't Trace

The most shared New Year line online is "Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one." It is commonly attributed to the country singer Brad Paisley, but we found no song, interview or post by him that contains it, only quote sites copying one another. The same goes for many lines credited to Oprah, C.S. Lewis or "unknown." There's nothing wrong with the sentiment; just don't put a name under it in a printed card. Write "as the saying goes" instead, or pick a line from this page, where every source is named.

Three quick ways to check a quote before you print it:

1. Search the exact words in quotation marks together with the book or speech it supposedly comes from.
2. Look for the full text on Project Gutenberg, Wikisource or an official transcript, and find the line yourself.
3. If the only sources are image sites and quote lists, call it "commonly attributed to," or leave the name off.

How to Turn a Quote Into Your Own New Year Message

A quote alone reads like a greeting-card insert. Add two sentences of your own and it becomes a message:

1. The quote, short, with the author's name.
2. One line about this person's year, something specific they did or went through.
3. One wish for the next twelve months, and keep it small and real.

Worked example, for a friend who moved to another state this year: "'Seas between us braid hae roar'd / Sin' auld lang syne.' (Burns) A few hundred miles isn't seas, but it felt like it this year. Here's to a 2027 with at least one visit and a lot more phone calls. Happy New Year."

What to avoid:

• Long poems in a text message. One or two lines are plenty.
• "New year, new you" to someone sensitive about weight or health.
• Resolution jokes to someone who had a hard year.
• Misquoting the Scots. If you change Burns's spelling to modern English, say it's a paraphrase.

Wishes rather than quotes? See our New Year card messages and Happy New Year wishes. If you want quotes to keep you going after January, try our motivational quotes for the year. And if Christmas is still in the way, our day after Christmas quotes cover the week in between.

Quick Questions

What are the best quotes for New Year? The ones you can trace and that fit the person. Burns's "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet" for a toast, Emerson's "every day is the best day in the year" for yourself, and Dickens's "happy to many more whose happiness depends on you" for a parent or boss are three that have lasted more than 150 years.

What are 5 positive short quotes for New Year? "Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year" (Emerson); "a new day with no mistakes in it yet" (Montgomery); "a cup o' kindness yet" (Burns); "The larger heart, the kindlier hand" (Tennyson); and "So may each year be happier than the last" (Dickens).

How do you wish someone a happy new year with a quote? Put the quote first, add one line about their year and one small wish for the next, then sign off. The worked example above shows the pattern.

When should you stop saying Happy New Year? There's no rule, but most people stop around the second week of January. A first-time greeting to a colleague or client is still fine through mid-January.