When the clock strikes twelve, the last thing you want is to be caught without something to drink. And what better way to commemorate the moment the ball drops and set the tone for the year ahead than with a special toast. So in order to help you not be the one hanging this New Year’s Eve when you’re called upon to make the big speech, we’ve compiled our favorite toasts and well-wishes, many from some very thoughtful and distinguished people (so you know it will be good!) like Benjamin Franklin, C.S. Lewis, and Willie Nelson.

 

• “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” — Benjamin Franklin
• “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” — Edith Pierce
• “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.” — T.S. Eliot
• “As you slide down the banisters of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way.”
• “Here’s health to those I love and wealth to those who love me.”
• “In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
• “Take everything in moderation, including moderation.” — Oscar Wilde
• “There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of Champagne.” — Bette Davis
• “May luck be your friend in whatever you do and may trouble be always a stranger to you.” — Irish Blessing
• “Embrace the glorious mess that you are.”— Elizabeth Gilbert
• “Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.” — Bill Vaughn
• “May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam.” — Irish Proverb

• “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” — Willie Nelson
• “New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours.” —Alex Morritt
• “There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” — C.S. Lewis
• “May your troubles be less, and your blessings be more, and nothing but happiness come through your door.”
• “Stir the eggnog, lift the toddy, Happy New Year, everybody”
• “Welcome be ye that are here, Welcome all, and make good cheer, Welcome all, another year.”
• “Here’s a toast to the future, a toast to the past, and a toast to our friends, far and near.”
• “Out with the old, in with the new, cheers to the future, and all that we do.”
• “May all your troubles during the coming year be as short as your New Year’s resolutions.”
• “I would rather be with the people in this room than with the finest people I know.”
• “Here’s to doing and drinking, not sitting and thinking.”
• “He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; he who makes one is a fool.” — F.M. Knowles
• “May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.” — Frank Sinatra
• “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” — William Shakespeare

This was originally published by Leah Hall and appeared here.