Top 274 Quotes & Sayings by Carl Sandburg

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American poet Carl Sandburg.

Last updated on November 3, 2024.

Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America."

American - Poet | January 6, 1878 - July 22, 1967

Source: Wikipedia

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

Carl Sandburg

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

Carl Sandburg

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.

Carl Sandburg

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.

Carl Sandburg

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

Carl Sandburg

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Carl Sandburg

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.

Carl Sandburg

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

Carl Sandburg

Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky - or the answer is wrong and you have to start over and try again and see how it comes out this time.

Carl Sandburg

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

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

I took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.

Carl Sandburg

I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.

Carl Sandburg

I fell in love, not deep, but I fell several times and then fell out.

Carl Sandburg

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

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

Carl Sandburg

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.

Carl Sandburg

There are 10 men in me and I do not know or understand one of them.

Carl Sandburg

Love your neighbor as yourself; but don't take down the fence.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.

Carl Sandburg

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

Carl Sandburg

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.

Carl Sandburg

All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.

Carl Sandburg

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

Carl Sandburg

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.

Carl Sandburg

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

Carl Sandburg

Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder.

Carl Sandburg

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

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

A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.

Carl Sandburg

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

Carl Sandburg

I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.

Carl Sandburg

I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.

Carl Sandburg

I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.

Carl Sandburg

Nothing happens unless first we dream.

Carl Sandburg

The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.

Carl Sandburg

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

Carl Sandburg

I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors.

Carl Sandburg

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

Carl Sandburg

A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.

Carl Sandburg

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

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

Carl Sandburg

Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.

Carl Sandburg

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.

Carl Sandburg

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

I have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.

Carl Sandburg

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

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

Carl Sandburg

There have been as many varieties of socialists as there are wild birds that fly in the woods and sometimes go up and on through the clouds.

Carl Sandburg

Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.

Carl Sandburg

I had been keeping an off eye on the advertising field, thinking I might become an idea man and a copywriter.

Carl Sandburg