Carl Sandburg
poet, musicologist, historian, novelist, writer, screenwriter, journalist, biographer, trade unionist, children's writer
Read on Wikipedia1878 – 1967
All Quotes by Carl Sandburg
“To be a good loser is to learn how to win.”
“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.”
“To be a good loser is to learn how to win.”
“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.”
“Gather the stars if you wish it so”
“A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.”
“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.”
“There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted.”
“Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows. We may pull apart the petals of a rose or make chemical analysis of its perfume, but the mystic beauty of its form and odor is still a secret, locked in to where we have no keys.”
“I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.”
“I am the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?”
“Hog Butcher for the World, City of the Big Shoulders.”
“The fog comes on silent haunches, and then moves on.”
“I want the respect of intelligent men but I will choose for myself the intelligent. I love art but I decide for myself what is art. I adore beauty but only my own soul shall tell me what is beauty. I worship God but I define and describe God for myself. I am an individual. The pleasure of my own heart shall be first to inform me when I have done good work.”
“I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.”
“When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the assassin... in the dust, in the cool tombs.”
“Tell me if the lovers are losers... tell me if any get more than the lovers.”
“Lay me on an anvil, O God. Let me lift and loosen old foundations.”
“Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, Go to it, O jazzmen.”
“The Republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
“The name of an iron man goes round the world. It takes a long time to forget an iron man.”
“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.”
“Look out how you use proud words. They wear long boots, hard boots.”
“The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked, "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."”
“Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.”
“The people will live on. And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.”
“The people know the salt of the sea Who else speaks for the Family of Man?”
“Man's life? A candle in the wind, hoar-frost on stone.”
“Man is a long time coming. There are men who can't be bought.”
“If she forgets where she came from, if the people lose sight of what brought them along, if she listens to the deniers and mockers, then will begin the rot and dissolution.”
“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”
“I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision …”
“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”
“One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.”
“I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.”
“A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.”
“To be a good loser is to learn how to win.”
“All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.”
“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
“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.”
“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Nothing happens unless first we dream.”