Carl Sandburg Quotes

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The drum in a dream pounds loud to the dreamer.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The drum in a dream
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.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Lay me on an anvil,
The past is a bucket of ashes
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The past is a bucket
I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I doubt if you can
The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The greatest cunning is to
Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Strange things blow in through
When one has the right swing and enthusiasm, selling is not unlike hunting, a veritable sport. To scare up the game by preliminary talk and to know how long to follow it, to lose your gain through poorly directed argument, to hang on to game that finally eludes, to boldly confront, to quickly circle around, to keep on the trail, tireless and keen, till you have bagged some orders, there is some satisfaction in returning at night, tired of the trail, but proud of the days work done.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: When one has the right
Nothing happens... but first a dream
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Nothing happens... but first a
The sea is always the same: and yet the sea always changes.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The sea is always the
If [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 Quotes: If [America] forgets where she
God, let me remember all good losers.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: God, let me remember all
Time is a sandpile we run our fingers in.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Time is a sandpile we
A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: A liar is a liar
In democracy both a deep reverence and a sense of the comic are requisite.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: In democracy both a deep
When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: When I was writing pretty
An inquiry which I once made into the psychology of the Indian sign language with a view to discovering a possible relation between it and Greek manual gesture as displayed in ancient graphic art, led to the conclusion that Indian rhythms arise rather in the centre of self-preservation than of self-consciousness. Which is only another way of saying that poetry is valued primarily by the aboriginal for the reaction it produces within himself rather than for any effect he is able to produce on others by means of it.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: An inquiry which I once
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
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,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Give me hunger,<br>O you gods
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 Quotes: Here is the difference between
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I cried over beautiful things
Why did he write to her, "I can't live without you?" And why did she write to him "I can't live without you?" For he went west and she went east and they both lived.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Why did he write to
The people know what the land knows.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The people know what the
I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I couldn't see myself filling
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Pile the bodies high at
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I can remember only a
A tree is best measured when it is down - and so it is with people.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: A tree is best measured
Once she had thrown a square of birch bark into the fire when her father came in the door. He might then have asked her why her quill pen had shaped a row of straight and crooked question marks and after each one an exclamation point
in rows of ten, perhaps forty running along
?! ?! ?! ?!
arranged in pairs or couples. If he had asked her what is this folderol and what can this nonsense mean she would have said the same she said when shaping them with her pen, one pair, one couple after another. Each question mark stands for my ignorance and asks if I may learn and know the answer. And each exclamation point stands for my surprise at how little I know, my amazement at my vast ignorance, my utter astonishment at how much there is for me to learn.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Once she had thrown a
Poetry is a tracing of the trajectories of a finite sound to the infinite points of its echoes.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a tracing of
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Alike and ever alike, we
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: And those who say,
The impact of television on our culture is ... indescribable. There's a certain sense in which it is nearly as important as the invention of printing.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The impact of television on
Poetry is a mock of a cry at finding a million dollars and a mock of a laugh at losing it.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a mock of
There are men and women so lonely they believe God, too, is lonely.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: There are men and women
Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is the journal of
Now I am here - now read me - give me a name.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Now I am here -
It is the business of little minds to shrink.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: It is the business of
When a nation goes down, or a society perishes, one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from. They lost sight of what had brought them along.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: When a nation goes down,
The squeaky wheel gets the grease but the quacking duck gets shot.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The squeaky wheel gets the
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 Quotes: Every blunder behind us is
There is no song to your singing.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: There is no song to
Tell no man anything, for no man listens
Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Tell no man anything, for
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Arithmetic is where the answer
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning ... proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Come and show me another
Poetry is the Path on the Rainbow by which the soul climbs; it lays hold on the Friend of the Soul of Man. Such exalted states are held to be protective and curative. Medicine men sing for their patients, and, in times of war, wives gather around the Chief's woman and sing for the success of their warriors. "Calling on Zeus by the names of Victory" as Euripides puts it.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is the Path on
Blowing,Blowing
The gray slabs
Will lose you
the winds will flick you away
In a whiff
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Blowing,Blowing<br>The gray slabs<br>Will lose you<br>the
Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a fresh morning
Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism of words.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is the capture of
Poetry is a section of river-fog and moving boat-lights, delivered between bridges and whistles, so one says, 'Oh!' and another, 'How?'
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a section of
The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The scholars and poets of
Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio or looked at television. 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 work.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin
Newspapers tell beforehand what is going to happen - maybe.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Newspapers tell beforehand what is
Poetry is a fossil rock-print of a fin and a wing, with an illegible oath between.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a fossil rock-print
Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it runs by.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Let a joy keep you.
One of the great Confederate combat leaders, General John B. Gordon, had sat at his horse and spoken farewell to his men. Some he had seen weeping as they folded burnt and shot-pierced battle flags and laid them on the stacked arms of surrender. As he told his troops his own grief he tried to give them hope to rebuild out of the poverty and ashes to which many would return. Gordon would never forget a Kentucky father who lost two sons, one dying for the North, the other for the South. Over the two graves of his soldier boys the father set up a joint monument inscribed God knows which was right.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: One of the great Confederate
Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Money buys everything except love,
Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn child.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Never will a time come
I have written some poetry that I don't understand myself.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I have written some poetry
There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted
Carl Sandburg Quotes: There are some people who
By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: By night the skyscraper looms
Somebody's little girl- how easy it is to make a sob story over who she once was and who she now is.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Somebody's little girl- how easy
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Gather the stars if you
Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is the synthesis of
Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Ordering a man to write
Let your heart look
on white sea spray
and be lonely.
Love is a fool star.
You and a ring of stars
may mention my name
and then forget me.
Love is a fool star.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Let your heart look<br>on white
Tell me if the lovers are losers ... tell me if any get more than the lovers.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Tell me if the lovers
A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us ... 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 to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?' ... If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time - the stuff of life.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: A man must find time
The doorknobs open the doors. The windows are always either open or shut. We are always either upstairs or downstairs in this house. Everything is the same as it always was.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The doorknobs open the doors.
Poetry is an art practiced with the terribly plastic material of human language.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is an art practiced
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 Quotes: Under the summer roses When
I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I knew I would read
Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a projection across
The shovel is brother to the gun.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The shovel is brother to
Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Where was I going? I
I am an idealist. I believe in everything - I am only looking for proofs.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I am an idealist. I
If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell
Carl Sandburg Quotes: If the facts are against
Let us go out in the fog, John, let us roll up our raincoat collars and go on the streets where men are sneering at the kings.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Let us go out in
The marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading Keep Off.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The marvelous rebellion of man
There are some people so lonely, they think God is lonely too-
Carl Sandburg Quotes: There are some people so
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Hog butcher for the world,
POETRY: A sliver of the moon lost in the belly of a golden frog.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: POETRY: A sliver of the
One summer afternoon I came home and found all the umbrellas sitting in the kitchen, with straw hats on, telling who they are.
...
The umbrella that peels the potatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink with the peelings stood up and said, "I am the umbrella that peels the potatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink with the peelings." ...
The umbrella that runs to the corner to get corners for the handkerchiefs stood up and said, "I am the umbrella that runs to the corner to get corners for the handkerchiefs."

...

"I am the umbrella that holds up the sky. I am the umbrella the rain comes through. I am the umbrella that tells the sky when to begin raining and when to stop raining.
"I am the umbrella that goes to pieces when the wind blows and then puts itself back together again when the wind goes down. I am the first umbrella, the last umbrella, the one and only umbrella all other umbrellas are named after, first, last and always."
When the stranger finished this speech telling who he was and where he came from, all the other umbrellas sat still for a little while, to be respectful.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: One summer afternoon I came
A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: A book is never a
The secret to happiness is to admire without desiring.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The secret to happiness is
I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers grappling the Long Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And the shoulders of the Chillicothe players were a red smoke against the sundown and the shoulders of the Rock Island players were a yellow smoke against the sundown. And the umpire's voice was hoarse calling balls and strikes and outs and the umpire's throat fought in the dust for a song.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I remember the Chillicothe ballplayers
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 will have it when the next test comes.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Valor is a gift. Those
Our lives are like a candle in the wind.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Our lives are like a
I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I don't know where I'm
There have been as many varieties of socialists as there are wild birds that fly in the woods and sometimes go up and on through the clouds.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: There have been as many
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. The hard beginnings were forgotten and the struggles farther along. They became satisfied with themselves. Unity and common understanding there had been, enough to overcome rot and dissolution, enough to break through their obstacles. But the mockers came. And the deniers were heard. And vision and hope faded. And the custom of greeting became "What's the use?" And men whose forefathers would go anywhere, holding nothing impossible in the genius of man, joined the mockers and the deniers. They lost sight of what brought them along.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: When a society or a
I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I had taken a course
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
They are in tune and step
with constellations of universal law.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Who else speaks for the
Lips half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Lips half-willing in a doorway.
All politicians should have 3 hats - one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of if elected.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: All politicians should have 3
I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: I wrote poems in my
One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: One of the greatest necessities
The fog comes on little cat feet.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: The fog comes on little
Poetry is a theorem of a yellow-silk handkerchief knotted with riddles, sealed in a balloon tied to the tail of a kite flying in a white wind against a blue sky in spring.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: Poetry is a theorem of
What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Carl Sandburg Quotes: What if they gave a
When the rose's flash to the sunset
Reels to the wrack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it's no use to beckon or say, "So long"
Maybe I'll tell you then
some other time.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: When the rose's flash to
After the sunset on the prairie, there are only the stars
Carl Sandburg Quotes: After the sunset on the
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.
Carl Sandburg Quotes: History is a living horse
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