New Year Quotes: 17 of the Best and Funniest to Usher in 2012

So 2012 is finally here, which means this could be the year you follow through on resolutions, make personal changes or do nothing at all because you still haven't quite figured out what your next move will be as yet.

Whichever of those areas you find yourself in it sure helps to hear something funny and inspiring every once in a while. So we have put together a list of some of the best New Year quotes that will either inspire you or have you at the edge of your seats.

Check them out below:

1. New Year's Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive. Jay Leno, as quoted by BusinessPundit.com.

2. What you do for Jewish New Year is you go down to Times Square... It's a lot quieter than the regular New Year. It's just a few Jews walking around going, 'sup?' - John Stewart, as quoted by the Huffington Post.

3. The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to. P.J. O'Rourke, as quoted by PoemOfQuotes.com.

4. Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to. - Bill Vaughan

5. An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. Bill Vaughn, as quoted by ThinkExist.com.

6. May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions. - Joey Adams

7. The only way to spend New Year's Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. W.H. Auden, as quoted by QuoteGarden.com.

8. New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can being paving hell with them as usual. - Mark Twain

9. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain, quoted by About.com.

10. New Year's Day is every man's birthday. - Charles Lamb

11. Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. Abraham Lincoln, as quoted by the Huffington Post.

12. He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. - F.M. Knowles

13. Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Hal Borland, quoted by About.com.

14. I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. - Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary

15. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. Oprah Winfrey, quoted by BusinessPundit.com.

16. The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months! Edward Payson Powell, quoted by QuoteGarden.com.

17. 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 Lovejoy Pierce, quoted by ThinkExist.com.