Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburgwas an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems, Cornhuskers, and Smoke and Steel. He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life",...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth6 January 1878
CountryUnited States of America
Poetry is an art practiced with the terribly plastic material of human language.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease but the quacking duck gets shot.
What of the Wright boys in Dayton? Just around the corner they had a shop and did a bicycle business-and they wanted to fly for the sake of flying. They were Man the Seeker, Man on a Quest. Money was their last thought, their final absent-minded idea. They threw out a lot of old mistaken measurements and figured new ones that stood up when they took off and held the air and steered a course. They proved that "the faster you go the less power you need."
Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away?
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
Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace.
The impact of television on our culture is. . . indescribable. There's a certain sense in which it is nearly as important as the invention of printing.
The simple dignity of a child drinking a bowl of milk embodies the fascination of an ancient rite.
I am an idealist. I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs.
Let your heart look on white sea spray and be lonely. Love is a fool star. You and a ring of stars may mention my name and then forget me. Love is a fool star.
Come clean with a child heart Laugh as peaches in the summer wind Let rain on a house roof be a song Let the writing on your face be a smell of apple orchards on late June.
I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.
We had two grand antique professors who had been teaching at Lombard since before I was born.
And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is romance and big things and real dreams that never go smash.