By Scott Robertson
Here, as we head into a new year, are thoughts on the subject of new beginnings from those wiser and more profound than your humble compiler. We at News and Neighbor wish you and yours a happy and prosperous new year.
From ends spring new beginnings. – Pliny the Elder
I feel myself in the future life. I am like a forest once cut down; the new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever. I am rising, I know, toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but heaven lights me with the reflection of unknown worlds. – Victor Hugo
Now the New Year reviving old desires
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. – Edward Fitzerald
He would like to start from scratch.
Where is scratch? – Elias Canetti
Distance doesn’t matter; it is only the first step that is difficult. – Marquis du Deffond
The first blow is half the battle. – Oliver Goldsmith, who was paraphrasing…
…Well begun is half done. – Horace, who was paraphrasing…
…Beginning is half of the whole. – Hesodius
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier. – John F. Kennedy
The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. – Peter Fleming
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Chinese proverb
The beginnings of all things are small. – Cicero
Before beginning, prepare carefully. – Cicero
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it. – Quintilian
All glory comes from daring to begin. – Eugene Ware
Who that well his work beginneth, the rather a good end he winneth. – John Gower
I arose early, that I might behold the glory of morning among the mountains. The eastern sky was already overspread, as with a thin silvery veil, with the least trace of amber and gold among its threads; while one solitary star, like a great opal, hung suspended in the translucent atmosphere, its rich heart glowing with red and yellow flame. As dawn brightened in the east, and rose-tints deepened along the sky, and the atmosphere grew tremulous as the lance-like beams began to pierce it, I seemed to hear the voice which in the beginning said, “Let there be light!” He who has never knelt at the base of overhanging mountains; who has never fallen asleep with no roof above him but the heavens, and no protection from the dangers which lurk amid the darkness of night save the watchful care of God, can little realize the significance of those two words – adoration and faith. – William Henry Harrison Murray
