The new semester’s approaching, and whether you’re a new freshman or about to start your senior year, it can be daunting. The work load for normal college students is pretty massive, and even if you haven’t spent your entire summer netflixing, it's disconcerting to think about all the upcoming reading and assignments. It’s easy to get wrapped up in textbooks and not make the most out of what people call the best four (or five, or six) years of your life. So let's make this year better than the last, whether that means boosting your GPA or spending a little more time with friends. So here are 25 quotes to get you excited and motivated for the new year!

1. "My personal ambition remains the same - to be creative, to be modern, to stay one step ahead, to enjoy life." -Natalie Massenet

2. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

3. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” -Mother Teresa

4. “I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.” -Albert Einstein

5. “You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.” -Roman Payne

6. “I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.” -Neal Shusterman

7. “Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.” -Criss Jami

8. “Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.” -Steven Erikson

9. “Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.” -Jean-Paul Sarte

10. “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” -Samuel Beckett

11. “There is scarcely any passion without struggle.” -Albert Camus

12. "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

13. "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela

14. “There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” -Linda Grayson

15. "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action." -Herbert Spencer

16. “No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.” -L. Frank Baum

17. “For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson

18. "You want weapons? We're in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself!" -The Doctor, Doctor Who

19. “What is now proved was once only imagined.” -William Blake

20. “Conquer the angry one by not getting angry; conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth." -Guatama Buddha

21. “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

22. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

23. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” -Oscar Wilde

24. “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” -Oscar Wilde

25. “I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself,

And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.” -Walt Whitman