74 Quotes & Sayings By Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg (June 8, 1878 - December 25, 1966) was an American poet, writer, editor, lecturer, historian. Sandburg is best known for his large body of work on the American West. Sandburg's work includes short stories, essays, poems, and biographies of political figures. He also wrote the screenplays for many movies.

Life is like an onion; you peel it off one...
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Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. Carl Sandburg
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A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?' . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time–the stuff of life. . Carl Sandburg
Come clean with a child heart Laugh as peaches in...
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Come clean with a child heart Laugh as peaches in the summer wind Let rain on a house roof be a song Let the writing on your facebe a smell of apple orchards on late June. Carl Sandburg
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A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique – but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby – with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker. . Carl Sandburg
Tell no man anything, for no man listens Yet hold...
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Tell no man anything, for no man listens Yet hold thy lips ready to speak. Carl Sandburg
Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a...
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Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language. Carl Sandburg
A baby is God's opinion that the world should go...
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A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. Carl Sandburg
Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.
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Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance. Carl Sandburg
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Gather the stars if you wish it so Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then... Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-bye. Carl Sandburg
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
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Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. Carl Sandburg
I've written some poetry I don't understand myself
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I've written some poetry I don't understand myself Carl Sandburg
I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.
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I'm either going to be a writer or a bum. Carl Sandburg
Time is the coin of your life. It is the...
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Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg
Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You...
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Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg
A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one.
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A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Carl Sandburg
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One of the great Confederate combat leaders, General John B. Gordon, had sat at his horse and spoken farewell to his men. Some he had seen weeping as they folded burnt and shot-pierced battle flags and laid them on the stacked arms of surrender. As he told his troops his own grief he tried to give them hope to rebuild out of the poverty and ashes to which many would return. Gordon would never forget a Kentucky father who lost two sons, one dying for the North, the other for the South. Over the two graves of his soldier boys the father set up a joint monument inscribed "God knows which was right. Carl Sandburg
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To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard. Carl Sandburg
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There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always. If the music dies down there is a silence. Almost the same as the movement of music. To know silence perfectly is to know music. Carl Sandburg
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Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it runs by. Carl Sandburg
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Look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back. They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can’t hear you calling -Look out how you use proud words. Carl Sandburg
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Nothing happens unless first a dream. Carl Sandburg
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Nothing happens unless first we dream. Carl Sandburg
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Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at GettysburgAnd pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work. Carl Sandburg
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Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. Carl Sandburg
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Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed. Carl Sandburg
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I take you and pile high the memories. Death will break her claws on some I keep. Carl Sandburg
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In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning Carl Sandburg
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I speak of new cities and new people I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes. I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west. I tell you there is nothing in the worldonly an ocean of tomorrows.a sky of tomorrows. I am a brother of the cornhuskers who sayat sundown: Tomorrow is a day.”- Carl Sandburg, Cornhuskers Carl Sandburg
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Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come. Carl Sandburg
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I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way. Carl Sandburg
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By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul. Carl Sandburg
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Beware of advice–even this. Carl Sandburg
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So time passed on. And the two skyscrapers decided to have a child. And they decided when their child came it should be a *free* child. "It must be a free child, " they said to each other. "It must not be a child standing still all its life on a street corner. Yes, if we have a child she mist be free to run across the prairie, to the mountains, to the sea. Yes, it must be a free child." So time passed on. Their child came. It was a railroad train, the Golden Spike Limited, the fastest long distance train in the Rootabaga Country. It ran across the prairie, to the mountains, to the sea. . Carl Sandburg
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The moon is friend for the lonesome to talk to. Carl Sandburg
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Let only the young come, Says the sea. Let them kiss my face And hear me. I am the last word And I tell Where storms and stars come from. Carl Sandburg
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Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves. They flickered out saying: "It was worth being a bubble, just to have held that rainbow thirty seconds. Carl Sandburg
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Stormy husky brawling City of the Big Shoulders. Carl Sandburg
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Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure if they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes. Carl Sandburg
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There are people who want to be everywhere at once and they get nowhere. Carl Sandburg
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Hope is an echo hope ties itself yonder yonder. Carl Sandburg
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Love your neighbor as yourself but don't take down the fence. Carl Sandburg
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Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. Carl Sandburg
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Time is a sandpile we run our fingers in. Carl Sandburg
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I'm an idealist: I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way. Carl Sandburg
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1 tell you the past is a bucket of ashes. Carl Sandburg
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Poetry is the opening and closing of a door leaving those who look through to guess what is seen during a moment. Carl Sandburg
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Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land wanting to fly in the air. Carl Sandburg
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One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude. Carl Sandburg
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The past is a bucket of ashes so live not in your yesterdays nor just for tomorrow but in the here and now. Carl Sandburg
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Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. Carl Sandburg
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Slang is language which takes off its coat spits on its hands - and goes to work. Carl Sandburg
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The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect. Carl Sandburg
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All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure. Carl Sandburg
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Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. Carl Sandburg
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The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to. Carl Sandburg
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Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder. Carl Sandburg
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I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no just for tomorrow, but in the here and now. Keep moving and forget the post mortems; and remember, no one can get the jump on the future. Carl Sandburg
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I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world. Carl Sandburg
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In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning. Carl Sandburg
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I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth. Carl Sandburg
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To be a good loser is to learn how to win. Carl Sandburg
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I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor. Carl Sandburg
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A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. Carl Sandburg
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I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends. Carl Sandburg
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Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. Carl Sandburg
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Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me. Carl Sandburg
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Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. Carl Sandburg
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Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment. Carl Sandburg
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I've written some poetry I don't understand myself. Carl Sandburg
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We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough. Carl Sandburg
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When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on. Carl Sandburg
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Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. Carl Sandburg
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When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along. Carl Sandburg