Pete Seeger Quotes

I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.

It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.

I tell kids, don't trust the media. The media with their emphasis on fame is helping to destroy this country, helping destroy the human race. It's the plug-in drug.

Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

This world is so full of hypocrisy, the only way you can be honest is to be a hermit.

Long live teachers of children, because they can show children how they can save the world.

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same.

Technology will save us if it doesn't wipe us out first.

I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.

The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem to be solved.

The key to the future of the world is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.

The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.

I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears.

I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by.

I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.

Most scientists know what needs to be done to save our Earth. But the politicians don't listen to them. They will listen to popular pressure; the people got to supply that.

Being generous of spirit is a wonderful way to live.

Realize that little things lead to bigger things.

There is a big, beautiful world that could be destroyed by selfishness and foolishness. We musicians have it without power to save it. In a small way, every single one of us counts.

Anybody who wants to learn everything is pretty stupid. You learn what you can.

According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God.

Hope that there are many, many small leaders.

Every time I read the paper those old feelings come on.We are waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool says to push on.

Every time I'm in the woods, i feel like I'm in church.

Parents are the hardest-working members of the population. But they do it for the highest wages. Kisses.

The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.

Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches.

My job, is to show folks there's a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.

This banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

There is no such thing as a wrong note ... just as long as you're singing along.

I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax.

I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.

If there's something wrong, speak up!

The American Indians were Communists. They were. Every anthropologist will tell you they were Communists. No rich, no poor. If somebody needed something the community chipped in.

A good song reminds us what we're fighting for.

I guess I've learned more from the Clearwater than anything else. All I did was help to plant a seed, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

Plagiarism is basic to all culture

I feel that my whole life is a contribution.

Food is one of the great organizing tools.

Participation - that's what's gonna save the human race.

I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things.

A productive mistake is: (1) made in the service of mission and vision; (2) acknowledged as a mistake; (3) learned from; (4) considered valuable; (5) shared for the benefit of all.

How can you save the world you have not seen if you can't save the community you have seen?

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.

One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.