Carl Sandburg quotes

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.
Carl Sandburg

A man must find time for himself.
Carl Sandburg

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way.
Carl Sandburg

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about
what was seen during a moment.
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

The moon is friend for the lonesome to talk to.
Carl Sandburg

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

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.
Carl Sandburg

Each man pictures his hell or heaven different.
Carl Sandburg

It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to
sit on a rock in the forest and ask, "Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?"
Carl Sandburg

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

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

It is the business of little minds to shrink.
Carl Sandburg

I tell you 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

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

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.
Carl Sandburg

Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.
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 have it when the next test comes.
Carl Sandburg

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
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

Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Carl Sandburg