Pete Seeger Quotes

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

RULERS should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung.

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.

It's been my belief that learning how to do something in your hometown is the most important thing.

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

If I've got a talent, it's for picking the right song at the right time for the right audience. And I can always seem to get people to sing with me.

Looking back, I think I tried to be too eclectic. Sometimes I'd sing thirty songs, and fifteen of them were not in English.

I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.

But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.

I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.

I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches.

I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

Singing with children in the schools has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

Did you ever want something really bad and then when you finally got it all you could do was stand there and grin at it?

I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.

Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.

Some may find them merely diverting melodies. Others may find them incitements to Red revolution. And who will say if either or both is wrong? Not I.

When I got out of school, I spent two years just hitchhiking around. Every time I met some old farmer who could play banjo, I got him to teach me a lick or two. Little by little, I put it together.

Like most teachers, I'm just another sower of seeds.

Work in nightclubs was interesting. There were interesting people and places, but by and large, the commercial music experience.

A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after.

Get people to sing together and they'll act together too.

Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.

If you love this land of the free, bring them home, bring them home, Bring them back from overseas.

The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.

Music has always had the ability to comfort and inspire.

You have a right to your opinion and I've got a right to mine. Period.

To everything there is a season.

The good and bad are all tangled up together. American popular music is loved around the world because of its African rhythm. But that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for slavery.

The world will be solved by millions of small things.

When you play the 12-string guitar,you spend half your life tuning the instrument and the other half playing it out of tune.

Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.

Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple.

Honest songs aren't written for money.

I never intended to make a living from music. That's the funny thing. I wanted to be a journalist.

I dreamed I saw a mighty room, the room was filled with men. And the paper they were signing said they'd never fight again.

If I had an axe on the evening at Newport when [Dylan] broke out the electric guitar, I'd have cut his cable.

Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on.

Be wary of great leaders.

You can't work on everything all the time, so start where you are.

To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love.

My mother gave me a ukulele at age eight, and I sang the popular tunes of the day.

I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing good that doesn't have bad consequences and nothing bad that doesn't have good consequences.

Not everybody has to sing the melody.

The world will be saved by people fighting for their homes.

Edison failed ten thousand times before he perfected the modern electric lamp. The average man would have quit at the first failure. That's why there are so many average men and only one Edison.

I was never enthusiastic about being somebody who was supposed to be silent about being a member of something.

I came along and was a teenager in the Depression, and nobody had jobs. So I went out hitchhiking, when I met a man named Woody Guthrie. He was the single biggest part of my education.

I’ve found that festivals are a relatively painless way to meet people and make a few points that need making, without having to hit them over the head with too many speeches.

Historically, I believe I was correct in refusing to answer their questions.