“The trees are coming into leafLike something almost being said;The recent buds relax and spread,Their greenness is a kind of grief. Is it that they are born againAnd we grow old? No, they die too.Their yearly trick of looking newIs written down in rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles threshIn fullgrown thickness every May.Last year is dead, they seem to say,Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.”

“To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted”

“I like sunrises, Mondays, and new seasons. God seems to be saying,"with me you can always start afresh.”

“... the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: "This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. This is the truth." It was as if we were being punished for loving the loveliness of summer. ”

“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.”

“this sort of, arrogant individualism which imagines each new generation can somehow create the world afresh.”