Best 244 quotes of Carl Sandburg on MyQuotes

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

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

After the sunset on the prairie, there are only the stars

A liar goes in fine clothes, a liar goes in rags, a liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.

A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.

Alike and ever alike, we are on all continents in the need of love, food, clothing, work, speech, worship, sleep, games, dancing, fun. From tropics to arctics humanity live with these needs so alike, so inexorably alike.

All my life I have been trying to learn, to read, to see and hear, and to write. At sixty-five I began my first novel and after the five years, lacking a month, I took to finish it, I was still traveling, still a seeker.

Always the path of American destiny has been into the unknown. Always there arose enough reserves of strength, balances of sanity, portions of wisdom to carry the nation through to a fresh start with ever-renewing vitality.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

An ambition is a little creeper that creeps and creeps in your heart night and day, singing a little song, "Come and find me, come and find me.

And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers. Go running back to dust and mist.

And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is romance and big things and real dreams that never go smash.

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?

And those who say, "I'll try anything once," often try nothing twice, three times, arriving late at the gate of dreams worth dying for.

An expert is a damn fool a long way from home.

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.

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.

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

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.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the women don't get you then the whiskey must.

a women is like a tea bag.it's only when she is in hot water that you realize how strong she is.

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

Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.

Beware of advice-even this.

By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.

Calling it off comes easy enough if you haven't told the girl you are smitten with her.

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 face be a smell of apple orchards on late June.

Come on, you Do you want to live forever?

Corn wind in the fall, come off the black lands, come off the whisper of the silk hangers, the lap of the flat spear leaves.

Didn't you tie the mittens on her feet (Wednesday Evening's) extra special nice? Yes--she is an extra special nice pigeon. She cries for pity when she wants pity. And she shuts her eyes when she doesn't want to look at you. And if you look deep in her eyes when her eyes are open you will see lights there exactly like the lights on the pastures and the meadows when the mist is drifting on a Wednesday evening just between the twilight and gloaming.

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.

Enough small empty boxes thrown into a big empty box fill it full.

Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life.

Faith is indispensable, and the world at times does not seem to have quite enough of it. It can and has accomplished what seems to be the impossible. Wars have been started and men and nations lost for the lack of it. Faith starts from the individual and builds men and nations. America was built by and on the faith of our ancestors.

For we know when a nation goes down and never comes back, when a society or a civilization perishes, one condition may always be found. They forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what brought them along.

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.

Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.

God, let me remember all good losers.

His books were part of him. Each year of his life, it seemed, his books became more and more a part of him. This room, thirty by twenty feet, and the walls of shelves filled with books, had for him the murmuring of many voices. In the books of Herodotus, Tacitus, Rabelais, Thomas Browne, John Milton, and scores of others, he had found men of face and voice more real to him than many a man he had met for a smoke and a talk.

History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it.

Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation's freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of big shoulders.

I am still studying verbs and the mystery of how they connect nouns. I am more suspicious of adjectives than at any other time in all my born days.

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?

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

I been a wanderin' Early and late, New York City To the Golden Gate An' it looks like I'm never gonna cease my Wanderin'.

I can remember only a few of the strange and curious words now dead but living and spoken by the English people a thousand years ago.

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

I could safely declare, I am an idealist... I believe in everything - I am only looking for proofs.

I cried over beautiful things, knowing no beautiful thing lasts.