Carl Sandburg
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 SandburgLet a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.
Carl SandburgI am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.
Carl SandburgIn these times you have to be an optimist to open yours eyes in the morning.
Carl SandburgA baby is God's opinion that life should go on.
Carl SandburgNothing happens unless first a dream.
Carl SandburgA man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
Carl SandburgI have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.
Carl SandburgI took to wearing a black tie known as the Ascot, with long drooping ends. I had seen pictures of painters, sculptors, poets, wearing this style of tie.
Carl SandburgPoetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
Carl SandburgI decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.
Carl SandburgThe sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
Carl SandburgPoetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.
Carl SandburgAnger 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.
Carl SandburgI 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 SandburgHere 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 SandburgI won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
Carl SandburgA book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.
Carl SandburgArithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper until you get the right answer.
Carl SandburgThe scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.
Carl SandburgStrange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.
Carl SandburgI have often wondered what it is an old building can do to you when you happen to know a little about things that went on long ago in that building.
Carl SandburgNothing happens unless first we dream.
Carl SandburgThe secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
Carl SandburgWe had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born.
Carl Sandburg
