Quotes from Carl Sandburg

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

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

Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings.

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.

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

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

The marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading "Keep Off."

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

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

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.

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

Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes.

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

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work—I am the grass; I cover all.

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

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

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

Why is there always a secret singingWhen a lawyer cashes in?Why does a hearse horse snickerHauling a lawyer away?

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

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

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

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?

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.

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