Carl Sandburg Quotes

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 …

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

If she 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.

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique — but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby — with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker.

Man is a long time coming. Man will yet win. Brother may yet line up with brother: This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers. There are men who can't be bought.

Man's life? A candle in the wind, hoar-frost on stone.

The people know the salt of the sea and the strength of the winds lashing the corners of the earth. The people take the earth as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope. Who else speaks for the Family of Man?

The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold. And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.

The little girl saw her first troop parade and asked, "What are those?" "Soldiers." "What are soldiers?" "They are for war. They fight and each tries to kill as many of the other side as he can." The girl held still and studied. "Do you know … I know something?" "Yes, what is it you know?" "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."

Look out how you use proud words. When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back. They wear long boots, hard boots.

The name of an iron man goes round the world. It takes a long time to forget an iron man.

The Republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.

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.

Tell me if the lovers are losers... tell me if any get more than the lovers.