Quotes By Carl Sandburg

Shame is the feeling you have when you agree with the woman who loves you that you are the man she thinks you are.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

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

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.

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

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

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

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

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.

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

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

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.

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

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.

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.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

I couldn't see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. This was all misty.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

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

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.

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

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