Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Carl Sandburg
31 quotes
“There are some people who can receive a truth by no other way than to have their understanding shocked and insulted.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Reckless Ecstasy (1904)
“Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows. We may pull apart the petals of a rose or make chemical analysis of its perfume, but the mystic beauty of its form and odor is still a secret, locked in to where we have no keys.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Incidentals (1904)
“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. 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. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. I was sure there are ten men in me and I do not know or understand one of them. I could safely declare, I am an idealist. A Parisian cynic says "I believe in nothing. I am looking for clues." My statement would be : I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Incidentals (1904); this is sometimes paraphrased: "I am an idealist. I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs.
“I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Incidentals (1904)
“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 (1878–1967) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Under the Harvest Moon" (1916)
“I am the people — the mob — the crowd — the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I Am the People, the Mob" (1916)
“Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chicago" (1916)
“The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over the harbor and city on silent haunches, and then moves on.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fog" (1916)
“I want the respect of intelligent men but I will choose for myself the intelligent. I love art but I decide for myself what is art. I adore beauty but only my own soul shall tell me what is beauty. I worship God but I define and describe God for myself. I am an individual. The pleasure of my own heart shall be first to inform me when I have done good work.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Egoism" as quoted by Amy Lowell, "Edgar Lee Masters and Carl Sandburg," Tendencies in Modern American Poetry (1917)
“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. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now?”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Grass" (1918)
“I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prairie" (1918)
“When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin... in the dust, in the cool tombs.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cool Tombs" (1918)
“Tell me if the lovers are losers... tell me if any get more than the lovers.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cool Tombs" (1918)
“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 (1878–1967) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prayers of Steel" (1920)
“Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jazz Fantasia" (1920)
“The Republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Washington Monument by Night" in Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922)
“The name of an iron man goes round the world. It takes a long time to forget an iron man.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Washington Monument by Night" in Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922)
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Primer Lessons" (1922)
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People, Yes" (1936)
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People, Yes" (1936)
“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?”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People, Yes" (1936)
“Man's life? A candle in the wind, hoar-frost on stone.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People, Yes (1936)
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The People Will Live On" (1936)
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On America, in Remembrance Rock (1948), epilogue, Ch. 2, p. 1001.
“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tentative (First Model)" Definitions of Poetry" in Complete Poems (1950)
“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 (1878–1967) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Frederick Van Ryn, This Week Magazine (January 4, 1953), p. 11. Sandburg previously used these words at a rally at Madison Square Garden, New York City (October 28, 1952), praising Adlai E. Stevenson duri…
“The United States is, not are. The Civil War was fought over a verb. Orval Faubus don't know that. But he gonna know, he gonna know.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Comments at the centennial celebration of the Lincoln-Douglas debates; Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, Oct. 7, 1958. Quoted in Herbert Mitgang, "Again—Lincoln v. Douglas", The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 19, 1958, …
“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declaration at his 85th birthday party (6 January 1963), as quoted in The Best of Ralph McGill : Selected Columns (1980) by Ralph McGill, edited by Michael Strickland, Harry Davis, and Jeff Strickland, p. 82
“One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 448
“I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) said by 1967 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in A Dictionary of Literary Quotations (1990) by Meic Stephens
“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.”
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remembrance Rock (1948), Ch. 2, p. 7