Carl Sandburg War Quotations

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

What if someone gave a war & Nobody came? / Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again.

The wind bit hard at Valley Forge one Christmas. Soldiers tied rags on their feet. Red footprints wrote on the snow . . .

Faith is indispensable, and the world at times does not seem to have quite enough of it. It can and has accomplished what seems to be the impossible. Wars have been started and men and nations lost for the lack of it. Faith starts from the individual and builds men and nations. America was built by and on the faith of our ancestors.

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 passengers ask the conductor- What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

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.