Carl Sandburg

“Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.”

“Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure if 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.”

“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

“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...”

“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.”

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

“Nothing happens unless first a dream.”

“Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”

“There are people who want to be everywhere at once, and they get nowhere.”

“Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.”

“Tell no man anything, for no man listens Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.”

“Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.”

“Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.”

“The scholars and poets of an earlier time can be read only with a dictionary to help.”

“To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.”

“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.”

“All human actions are equivalent... and all are on principle doomed to failure.”

“There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.”

“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

“I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.”

“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.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself; but don't take down the fence.”

“I decided I would go to Chicago and try my luck as a writer after those eight months as a fireman.”

“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.”

“I have become infected, now that I see how beautifully a book is coming out of all this.”

“I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.”

“To be a good loser is to learn how to win.”

“I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.”

“A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.”

“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.”

“We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.”

“My room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen was at the end of a hall.”

“I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.”

“Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”

“I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.”

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.”

“A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one. Genius is the talent of a dead man.”

“When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on.”

“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.”

“One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.”

“In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.”

“I 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.”

“Anger 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.”

“Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.”

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

“Calling it off comes easy enough if you haven't told the girl you are smitten with her.”

“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.”

“Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don't worry about my destiny.”

“Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.”

“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.”

“I 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.”

“What is a stratosphere fourteen miles from the earth or a sunken glass house on the sea-bottom amid fish and feather- stars unless a bet that man can shove on beyond yesterday's record of man the hoper, the believer?”

“These wheels within wheels These leaves folded in leaves These wheeling winds and winding leaves Those sprockets from those seeds This spiral shooting from that rainfall- What does a turning earth say to its axis? How should a melon say thanks Or a squash utter blessings?”

“I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.”

“Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself, but don't take down the fence.”

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

“Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.”

“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.”

“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.”

“I've written some poetry I don't understand myself”

“A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.”

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

“A book is never a masterpiece: it becomes one.”

“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.”

“I have always felt that a woman has the right to treat the subject of her age with ambiguity until, perhaps, she passes into the realm of over ninety. Then it is better she be candid with herself and with the world.”

“We had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born.”

“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.”

“I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes, so live not in your yesterdays, no 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.”

“You remember some bedrooms you have slept in. There are bedrooms you like to remember and others you would like to forget.”

“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.”

“Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder.”