Neither should one live in the past, as if to him there was no future; as if he had done with all the rest of life. Keep young. Many men talk about being born again. Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one more hole in the buckle, if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but, on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take interest in the things that are and are to be, and not in the things that were and are past.

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator

“A Completed Year,” sermon, Plymouth Pulpit #379 (10 Jan 1883)