30 New Year’s Quotes to Help You Get 2026 Off to a Great Start

On New Year’s Eve, a lot of people like to plan how they’re going to improve themselves for next year. Ultimately? Most of them fail. This year? Read these quotes, think about them, and come up with some changes that will stick this time. New Year’s Eve only comes once per year. Make the most of it!

1) “Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.” -- Alfred Adler

2) “Men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” -- James Allen

3) “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -- Arthur Ashe

4) “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.” -- Roger Babson

5) “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” -- Jordan Belfort

6) “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth… not going all the way and not starting.” -- Buddha

7) “Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.” -- Warren Buffett

8) “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” -- Edmund Burke

9) “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” -- Ben Franklin

10) “There is nothing so fatal to character as half-finished tasks.” -- David Lloyd George

11) “The life we end up with is simply an accumulation of the choices we make.” -- Darren Hardy

12) “To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.” -- William James

13) “If you only do what you know you can do -- you never do very much.” -- Tom Krause

14) “Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times. And a very small number, really.” -- Brandon Lee

15) “What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.” -- C. S. Lewis

16) “Beware of missing chances; otherwise, it may be altogether too late someday.” -- Franz Liszt

17) “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” -- Vince Lombardi

18) “If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?” -- W. Somerset Maugham

19) “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” -- Elon Musk

20) “One extends one’s limits only by exceeding them.” -- M. Scott Peck

21) “Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision.” -- Anthony Robbins

22) “If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” -- Nora Roberts

23) “By the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward.” -- Fulton Sheen

24) “The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” -- Ben Stein

25) “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” -- Robert Louis Stevenson

26) “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” -- Henry David Thoreau

27) “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” -- Lao Tzu

28) “When you are in the valley, keep your goal firmly in view, and you will get the renewed energy to continue the climb.” -- Denis Waitley

29) “The magic you are looking for is in the work you’re avoiding.” -- Chris Williamson

30) “The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.” -- Zig Ziglar

Also see:

30 New Year’s Quotes to Help You Get Your Year Off to a Great Start

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