Carolina Quotes
Carl Sandburg
Library of Congress
1955

Carl Sandburg

North Carolina · connected1878–1967

American writer and editor (1878–1967)

  • Died in Flat Rock

poet, musicologist, historian, novelist, writer, screenwriter

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Quotations with a citation

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. 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. To be a good loser is to learn how to win. I was sure there are ten men in me and I do not know or understand one of them. I could safely declare, I am an idealist. A Parisian cynic says "I believe in nothing. I am looking for clues." My statement would be : I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs.
Incidentals (1904); this is sometimes paraphrased: "I am an idealist. I believe in everything — I am only looking for proofs."
A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. A book that does nothing to you is dead. A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life. If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive. Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby. The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable. A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique — but he is. Before man learned how to make an alphabet, how to make a wheel, how to make a fire, he knew how to make a baby — with the great help of woman, and his God and Maker.
Remembrance Rock (1948), Ch. 2, p. 7
I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision …
Interview with Frederick Van Ryn, This Week Magazine (January 4, 1953), p. 11. Sandburg previously used these words at a rally at Madison Square Garden, New York City (October 28, 1952), praising Adlai E. Stevenson during the latter's 1952 presidential campaign. Reported in The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson (1955), vol. 4, p. 175.
Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.
Declaration at his 85th birthday party (6 January 1963), as quoted in The Best of Ralph McGill : Selected Columns (1980) by Ralph McGill, edited by Michael Strickland, Harry Davis, and Jeff Strickland, p. 82 — 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. — As quoted without source in The School Musician Director and Teacher Vol. 43 (1971) by the American School Band Directors' Association

In the libraries

Open Library Abraham Lincoln · 1926 View library record ↗ Open Library Cornhuskers · 1918 View library record ↗ Open Library Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--The American Experience · 1999 View library record ↗ Open Library Rootabaga Stories · 2010 View library record ↗ Open Library Smoke and steel · 1920 View library record ↗ Open Library The United States in Literature [with three long stories] -- Seventh Edition · 1952 View library record ↗

Read Carl Sandburg

Abraham Lincoln 1926 Find a copy Cornhuskers 1918 Find a copy Smoke and steel 1920 Find a copy Rootabaga Stories 2010 Find a copy The United States in Literature [with three long stories] -- Seventh Edition 1952 Find a copy Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--The American Experience 1999 Find a copy

Recorded without a firm citation

Kept here, labelled, rather than mixed in above.

The greatest cunning is to have none at all.
This line appears in section 94 of "The People, Yes" (1936), but that section contains many common proverbs and expressions not original to Sandburg which he is merely quoting within the poem, including this one.

misattributed

The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something.