Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
Carl Sandburg

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
Carl Sandburg
Nothing happens unless first we dream.
Carl Sandburg

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.
Carl Sandburg

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

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

I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.
Carl Sandburg

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on.
Carl Sandburg

To be a good loser is to learn how to win.
Carl Sandburg

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

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
Carl Sandburg

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

I fell in love, not deep, but I fell several times and then fell out.
Carl Sandburg

I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.
Carl Sandburg

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

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

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

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.
Carl Sandburg

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
Carl Sandburg

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

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.
Carl Sandburg

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

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.
Carl Sandburg

There are 10 men in me and I do not know or understand one of them.
Carl Sandburg

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

Biography
Nationality: American
Type: Poet
Born: January 6, 1878
Died: July 22, 1967