New Year's Day is every man's birthday.

Charles Lamb’s remark comes from his essay “New Year’s Eve,” one of the familiar, conversational pieces he published under the pseudonym “Elia.” Written in the early nineteenth century, the essay is a reflective meditation on time, aging, and the uneasy mixture of hope and melancholy that attends the turning of the year. Lamb treats the calendar change not as a mere social festivity but as a psychological milestone: a moment when people instinctively take stock of their lives and imagine beginning again. The line crystallizes that mood by recasting New Year’s Day as a universal personal anniversary.

Calling New Year’s Day “every man’s birthday” suggests that the year’s renewal offers a symbolic rebirth available to all, regardless of one’s actual date of birth. The phrase captures the democratic, leveling quality of the calendar: everyone crosses the threshold together, and everyone is invited to imagine a fresh start. In Lamb’s characteristically intimate tone, the idea also carries an undertow of self-scrutiny—birthdays mark time’s passage, and so does the New Year, prompting resolutions, regrets, and hopes. The line’s appeal lies in its compact fusion of celebration and existential accounting.