Quotes from Carl Sandburg

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. And when you spend it, spend it wisely so that you get the most for your expenditure.

Why did he write to her, "I can't live without you?" And why did she write to him "I can't live without you?" For he went west and she went east and they both lived.

Someday they'll give a war and nobody will come.

Have I, have you, been too silent? Is there an easy crime of silence?

There are men and women so lonely they believe God, too, is lonely.

Revolt and terror pay a price. Order and law have a cost.

One Parting Why did he write to her, I can't live without you? And why did she write to him, I can't live without you? For he went west, she went east, And they both lived.

The single clenched fist lifted and ready, Or the open asking hand held out and waiting. Choose: For we meet by one or the other.

Beware of advice—even this.

Now I am here - now read me - give me a name.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

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. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

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. Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.

The shovel is brother to the gun.

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; they walk off proud; they can't hear you calling - Look out how you use proud words.

Wishes left on your lips The mark of their wings. Regrets fly kites in your eyes.

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

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day end, A hand to touch me in the dark room Breaking the long loneliness.

I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes. I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the west. I tell you there is nothing in the world only an ocean of to-morrows, a sky of to-morrows.

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

The secret to happiness is to admire without desiring.

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.