Quote of the Day (Mark Twain, on New Year’s Day, ‘A Harmless Annual Institution’)

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. 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. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.”—American novelist, humorist, lecturer, and journalist Mark Twain (1835-1910), “New Year's Day,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1, 1863

Joke of the Day (Morgan Cutolo, With a Resolution for the New Year)

“My resolution was to read more, so I turned on the subtitles on my TV.”— Freelance journalist Morgan Cutolo, “52 New Year’s Jokes That Will Have You Laughing into 2024,” Reader’s Digest, Dec. 28, 2023

Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on the New Year and 'The Rugged Way to Heaven')

“New Year coming on apace

What have you to give me?

Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,

Face me with an honest face;

You shall not deceive me:

Be it good or ill, be it what you will,

It needs shall help me on my road,

My rugged way to heaven, please God.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Old and New Year Ditties,” in The Complete Poems, text by R.W. Crump, notes by Betty S. Flowers (2001)

(The image accompanying this post of Christina Rossetti was painted by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in 1877.)