Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Carl Sandburg (American Poet, Historian)

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) was an American poet, biographer, historian, and folklorist. Remembered best as America’s great “Poet of the People,” Sandburg wrote verse that reflected down-to-earth industrial America.

Born of Swedish descent in Galesburg, Illinois, Sandburg first tried various occupations and fought in the Spanish-American war. After studying (but not graduating) at Lombard College, he became a journalist for the Chicago Daily News.

Strongly influenced by Walt Whitman, Sandberg’s poetry reflected down-to-earth industrial America—it made an instant and favorable impression. His first volume of poetry was Chicago Poems (1916.) Other collections include Cornhuskers (1918,) Smoke and Steel (1920,) Good Morning, America (1928) and The People, Yes (1936.)

Sandburg also won Pulitzer Prizes for his Complete Poems (1950,) and for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939,) part of his magnificent six-volume biography of Lincoln. Sandburg also published a collection of American folk songs and ballads in The American Songbag (1927.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Carl Sandburg

Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Patience

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Language

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

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Art, One liners, Poets, Poetry

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Poetry, Poets

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: City Life, Cities

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.
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 Present, Past and Present, The Past, Past, Live-now, Virtue, Moving on

I have written some poetry that I don’t understand myself.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Poets, Art, Poetry

Time is a sandpile we run our fingers in.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Time Management

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Language

I won’t take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Religion

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Intelligence, Cunning

If I added to their pride of America, I am happy.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: America

If she America 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.
Carl Sandburg

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

Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Money

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

Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Peace

The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Time Management, Procrastination, Action

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Solitude, Creativity

A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Opinion, God, Babies, 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

Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Poetry, Poets, One liners

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

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

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: Cities, City Life

In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning.
Carl Sandburg
Topics: Optimism

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

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