Time is a sandpile we run our fingers in.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Time Management
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
Topics: Time Management, Living, Time, Value of a Day
I have written some poetry that I don’t understand myself.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Art, Poets, Poetry
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Art, Poets, Poetry, One liners
Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: America
Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would mark.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Solitude
There are people who want to be everywhere at once, and they get nowhere.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Aspirations, Goals
A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: God, Babies, One liners, Opinion
The republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Foresight, Vision, Forethought, Dreams, Graduation
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me workI 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 passengers ask the conductor:What place is this?Where are we now?I am the grass. Let me work.
—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
Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: One liners, Poetry, Poets
Who put up that cage? Who hung it up with bars, doors? Why do those on the inside want to get out? Why do those outside want to get in? What is this crying inside and out all the time? What is this endless, useless beating of baffled wings at these bars, doors, this cage?
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Faith
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
Topics: Hell
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.
—Carl Sandburg
A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Family
The past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, nor 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
Topics: The Past, Past and Present, The Present, Virtue, Live-now, Moving on, Past
Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Peace
Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Life
If I added to their pride of America, I am happy.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: America
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.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: City Life, Cities
In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Optimism
The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Intelligence, Cunning
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Language
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 have it when the next test comes.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Now, Will, Bravery, Gift, Courage
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Poetry
I won’t take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Religion
Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Poetry, Poets
One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Solitude, Creativity
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
—Carl Sandburg
Topics: Language
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Phyllis McGinley American Children’s Books Writer
- Shel Silverstein American Cartoonist, Author
- Marie Chapian American Christian Writer
- May Sarton American Children’s Books Writer
- Louise Erdrich American Author
- e. e. cummings American Poet, Writer, Painter
- Nikki Giovanni American Poet
- Elizabeth Prentiss American Children’s Books Writer
- James Whitcomb Riley American Children’s Books Writer
- Diane Ackerman American Poet, Naturalist
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