Top 200 Carl Sandburg Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.”

— Carl Sandburg

2. “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

— Carl Sandburg

3. “I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”

— Carl Sandburg

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4. “Nothing happens unless first we dream.”

— Carl Sandburg

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5. “The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.”

— Carl Sandburg

6. “Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?”

— Carl Sandburg

7. “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.”

— Carl Sandburg

8. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease but the quacking duck gets shot.”

— Carl Sandburg

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

— Carl Sandburg

10. “Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace.”

— Carl Sandburg

11. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the women don’t get you then the whiskey must.”

— Carl Sandburg

12. “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

— Carl Sandburg

13. “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

14. “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

15. “To be a good loser is to learn how to win.”

— Carl Sandburg

16. “A tree is best measured when it is down – and so it is with people.”

— Carl Sandburg

17. “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”

— Carl Sandburg

18. “Now is the time. It is never too late to start something.”

— Carl Sandburg

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

— Carl Sandburg

20. “Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.”

— Carl Sandburg

21. “Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

— Carl Sandburg

22. “To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damned hard.”

— Carl Sandburg

23. “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.”

— Carl Sandburg

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

— Carl Sandburg

25. “Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.”

— Carl Sandburg

26. “Beware of advice-even this.”

— Carl Sandburg

27. “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.”

— Carl Sandburg

28. “I will be back soon if not sooner and when I come back I will return.”

— Carl Sandburg

29. “Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.”

— Carl Sandburg

30. “The past is a bucket of ashes.”

— Carl Sandburg

31. “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.”

— Carl Sandburg

32. “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.”

— Carl Sandburg

33. “The fog comes on little cat feet.”

— Carl Sandburg

34. “The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.”

— Carl Sandburg

35. “Come on, you Do you want to live forever?”

— Carl Sandburg

36. “My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.”

— Carl Sandburg

37. “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

38. “There is only one man in the world and his name is All Men. There is only one woman in the world and her name is All Women. There is only one child in the world and the child’s name is All Children.”

— Carl Sandburg

39. “Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night.”

— Carl Sandburg

40. “Love your neighbor as yourself; but don’t take down the fence.”

— Carl Sandburg

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

— Carl Sandburg

42. “Such a Big miracle in such a tiny baby. Big things often have small beginnings A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”

— Carl Sandburg

43. “There is only one child in the world and the Child’s name is All Children.”

— Carl Sandburg

44. “The machine yes the machine never wastes anybody’s time never watches the foreman never talks back.”

— Carl Sandburg

45. “Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire, smoke-stacks, waffles, pansies, people, and purple sunsets.”

— Carl Sandburg

46. “Drum on your drums, batter on your banjos, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.”

— Carl Sandburg

47. “A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.”

— Carl Sandburg

48. “Our lives are like a candle in the wind.”

— Carl Sandburg

49. “An expert is a damn fool a long way from home.”

— Carl Sandburg

50. “Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away?”

— Carl Sandburg