Attention, minuit va bientôt sonner
Le compte à rebours va être amorcé,
L’heure est au bilan, peut-être aux regrets,
On va enterrer l’année écoulée.
Les résolutions : toute une tradition !
Combien d’entre nous vraiment les tiendrons ?
J’ai le cœur serré, chargé d’émotions,
Le décompte est fait, nous nous embrassons.
2011 est morte, ne regrettons rien,
Quelle année c’était ! ça je m’en souviens !
Que de bons souvenirs seul ou en commun,
Ceux à oublier sont déjà bien loin.
Adieu belle année, je ne t’oublierai pas,
Tout ce qui s’est passé est inscrit en moi.
J’emporte avec moi les rires et les joies,
J’enterre avec toi les peurs, les tracas.
2012 écris nous une belle histoire,
Une de celles dont on rêve silencieux le soir.
N’écoute pas la dictée de ton passé noir,
Le monde peut être beau, voudrais-tu me croire?
Je souhaite bien sûr amour et joie à chacun,
Une vie parsemée de beaux lendemains
Et pour ceux qui semblent ne plus croire en rien,
Un murmure d’espoir venu du lointain.
And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
Thomas Hood
A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
Edgar Guest
That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of a year."
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
If it didn’t bring you joy
just leave it behind
Let’s ring in the new year
with good things in mind
Let every bad memory
that brought heartache and pain
And let’s turn a new leaf
with the smell of new rain
Let’s forget past mistakes
making amends for this year
Sending you these greetings
to bring you hope and cheer
Happy New Year!
Author Unknown
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, "Little Gidding"
The object of a New Year is not that we should have
a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and
a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.
Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would
make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things,
he will certainly do nothing effective.
G.K. Chesterton
NEW YEAR
To leave the old with a burst of song;
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the things that bind you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that’s past;
To have the strength to let go your hold
Of the not worth while of the days grown old;
To dare go forth with a purpose true,
To the unknown task of the year that’s new;
To help your brother along the road,
To do his work and lift his load;
To add your gift to the world’s good cheer,
Is to have and to give a Happy New Year.
Author Unknown
People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural
intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but
animated machines…. It appears to me, besides, that
[such people] can never have observed with attention
the character of animals, not to have distinguished
among them the different voices of need, of suffering,
of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their
affections. It would be very strange that they should
express so well what they could not feel.
Voltaire, Traité sur la tolerance
How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one
goes they hold you – you leave little bits of yourself
fluttering on the fences – like rags and shreds of your very life.
Katherine Mansfield
I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad
it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better
tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about
a person by the way he/she handles these three things:
a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.
I've learned that regardless of your relationship with
your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your
life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same
thing as making a "life."
I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.
I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with
a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able
to throw something back.
I've learned that whenever I decide something with
an open heart, I usually make the right decision.
I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have
to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach
out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just
a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still
have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget
what you said, people will forget what you did, but people
will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face
the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and
even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite
to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start
more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on
the value,the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and
more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality
of personal relationship that saves everything.
Thomas Merton
We can travel a long way and do many things, but our deepest
happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences.
it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and
knowing ourselves to be always at home.
Sharon Salzberg
If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday,
laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be
planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today.
Joyce Chapman
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy
which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before
children.
Kahlil Gibran
LIGHTEST of dancers, with no thought
Thy glimmering feet beat on my heart,
Gayest of singers, with no care
Waking to beauty the still air,
More than the labours of our art,
More than our wisdom can impart,
Thine idle ecstasy hath taught.
Lost long in solemn ponderings,
With the blind shepherd mind for guide,
The uncreated joy in you
Hath lifted up my heart unto
The morning stars in their first pride,
And the angelic joys that glide
High upon heaven-uplifted wings.
There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness,
but of power.
They speak more eloquently
than ten thousand tongues.
They are the messengers
of overwhelming grief,
of deep contrition,
and of unspeakable love.
Washington Irving
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape;
Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
One night I asked Love: “Tell me truly, who are you?”
It said: “I am life eternal, I multiply the lovely life.”
I said: “O you who are beyond each place, where is
your home?”
It said: “I am together with the heart’s fire and beside
the wet eye,
I am a dyer; due to me every cheek turns saffron-colored.
I am a swift-footed messenger, and the lover my lean
steed.
I am the crimson of the tulip, the merchandise’s worth,
I am the sweetness of lament, the unveiler of all that is
veiled . . .”
May your goodness always increase
And your smiling face never cease
In our head the thought of your love
Every day is on the increase.
Every cedar and every spruce
From your height may you hear their pleas
The eye not intrigued by thee
Its tear drops a bloody disease.
Your eye for mesmerizing hearts
Is a magician and master-tease.
Wherever a heart is longing for thee
Impatiently shears its own fleece.
The beauty of all the lovers
Beside your swan is ugly geese.
The heart that is out of love’s lease
From the circle of union release.
Hafiz’s soul, your ruby lips ease
Away from base lips, if you please.
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood,
but of respect and joy in each other's life."
Richard Bach
Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others.
Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang,
a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit
understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you
climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.
Mignon McLaughlin
He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs
at all tragedies, real or imaginary.
In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak:
but for that you must have long legs.
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain:
either you will reach a point higher up today, or you
will be training your powers so that you will be able
to climb higher tomorrow.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Hope
by FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
The original poem in german(Die Hoffnung)
Man ever talks, and Man ever dreams
Of better days that are yet to be,
After glittering goal, that distant gleams,
Running and racing untiringly.
The worldly may grow old and young as it will,
But the Hope of man is Improvement still.
Hope bears him into life in her arms,
She flutters around the boy's young bloom,
The soul of youth with her magic warms,
Nor rests with age in the silent tomb;
For ends man his weary course at the grave,
There plants he Hope o'er his ashes to wave.
Here is the poem in its german original
Die Hoffnung
von Friedrich Schiller
Es reden und träumen die Menschen viel
Von besseren künftigen Tagen,
Nach einem glücklichen gold'nen Ziel
Sieht man sie rennen und jagen,
Die Welt wird alt und wieder jung,
Doch der Mensch hofft immer Verbesserung.
Die Hoffnung führt ihn in's Leben ein,
Sie umflattert den fröhlichen Knaben,
Den Jüngling bezaubert ihr Geisterschein,
Sie wird mit dem Greis nicht begraben;
Denn beschließt er im Grabe den müden Lauf,
Noch am Grabe pflanzt er die Hoffnung auf.
Es ist kein leerer schmeichelnder Wahn,
Erzeugt im Gehirne des Toren,
Im Herzen kündet es laut sich an:
Zu was Besserem sind wir geboren!
Und was die innere Stimme spricht,
Das täuscht die hoffende Seele nicht.
Though beauty is, with the most apt similitude, I had
almost said with the most literal truth, called a flower
that fades and dies almost in the very moment
of its maturity; yet there is, methinks, a kind of beauty
which lives even to old age; a beauty that is not
in the features, but, if I may be allowed the expression,
shines through them. As it is not merely corporeal it is
not the object of mere sense, nor is it to be discovered
but by persons of true taste and refined sentiment.
FULKE GREVILLE, Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.
It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.
Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
implore you to stay awhile with us
so we may learn by your shimmering light
how to look beyond complexion and see community.
It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.
On this platform of peace, we can create a language
to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices to celebrate the promise of
Peace.
We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace.
We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace.
We look at each other, then into ourselves,
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation:
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.
All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won
I will watch you struggle long before the answers come
But I won’t make it harder, I’ll be there to cheer you on
I’ll shine the light that guides you down the road you’re walking on
Dar Williams
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to thee."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes
of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
Some see nature all ridicule and deformity . . . and some
scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man
of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
William Blake
You listen to so much more than I can say. You hear consciousness.
You go with me where the words I say can’t carry you.
I want to be just like a blade of grass, that moves as the air
moves it -to talk just according to the impulse of the moment.
And I do.
His love is as restful as Nature itself. He has no standard
for you to conform to, no choice about you, but is simply
with your reality, just as Nature is. You are real, so is he:
the two realities love each other - voila !
Excerpt from Khalil Gibran'S love letters
Did I say that the humans might be filed in categories?
Well, and if I did, let me qualify -- not all humans.
You elude me. I cannot place you, cannot grasp you.
I may boast that of nine out of ten, under given
circumstances, I can forecast their action; that of nine
out of ten, by their word or action, I may feel the pulse
of their hearts.
But of the tenth I despair. It is beyond me. You are that tenth.
Were ever two souls, with dumb lips, more incongruously matched!
We may feel in common -- surely, we oftimes do -- and when we do
not feel in common, yet do we understand; and yet we have no
common tongue.
Spoken words do not come to us. We are unintelligible.
God must laugh at the mummery.
The one gleam of sanity through it all is that we are both large
temperamentally, large enough to often understand.
True, we often understand but in vague glimmering ways,
by dim perceptions, like ghosts, which, while we doubt, haunt us
with their truth.
And still, I, for one, dare not believe; for you are that tenth
which I may not forecast.
Am I unintelligible now? I do not know. I imagine so. I cannot
find the common tongue.
Large temperamentally -- that is it. It is the one thing that
brings us at all in touch. We have, flashed through us, you and I,
each a bit of universal, and so we draw together. And yet we are
so different.
I smile at you when you grow enthusiastic? It is a forgivable
smile -- nay, almost an envious smile. I have lived twenty-five
years of repression. I learned not to be enthusiastic.
It is a hard lesson to forget.
I begin to forget, but it is so little. At the best, before I die,
I cannot hope to forget all or most. I can exult, now that I am
learning,in little things, in other things; but of my things,
and secret things doubly mine, I cannot, I cannot.
Do I make myself intelligible?
Do you hear my voice?
I fear not.
There are poseurs. I am the most successful of them all.
In discourse more sweet,
(For Eloquence the Sound, Song charmes the sense,)
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
By William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping
slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where
the cricket sings; There midnight's all a-glimmer, and
noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I want to help you to grow as beautiful as God meant
you to be when he thought of you first.
George MacDonald, The Marquis of Lossie
Every great man is always being helped by everybody;
for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
John Ruskin
Such help as we can give to each other in this world
is a debt to each other; and the man who perceives
a superiority or a capacity in a subordinate, and
neither confesses nor assists it, is not merely
the withholder of kindness, but the committer of injury.
John Ruskin
If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin Into his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson
O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
From Shakespeare's Henry IV. Part I
When animals express their feelings they pour out like
water from a spout. Animals' emotions are raw, unfiltered,
and uncontrolled. Their joy is the purest and most contagious
of joys and their grief the deepest and most devastating.
Their passions bring us to our knees in delight and sorrow.
Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals
