Carl Sandburg Quotes

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.

I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.

To be a good loser is to learn how to win.

The fog comes/ on little cat feet./ It sits looking over/ harbor and city/ on silent haunches/ and then moves on.

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether 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.

We don't have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.

We had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born.

We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.

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.

When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.

Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.

You remember some bedrooms you have slept in. There are bedrooms you like to remember and others you would like to forget.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. 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 planes 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 devises and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable.

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.

And how should a beautiful, ignorant stream of water know it heads for an early release - out across the desert, running toward the Gulf, below sea level, to murmur its lullaby, and see the Imperial Valley rise out of burning sand with cotton blossoms, wheat, watermelons, roses, how should it know?

(Chicago) Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.

All politicians should have 3 hats -- one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of if elected.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.