Top 30 Pete Seeger Quotes

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’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.

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

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, and I do this voluntarily.

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.

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

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.

If there’s something wrong, speak up!

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.

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.

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.

Being generous of spirit is a wonderful way to live.

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

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

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

I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I’ll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I’m singing too many serious songs, I’ll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.

I’m still a communist in the sense that I don’t believe the world will survive with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer – I think that the pressures will get so tremendous that the social contract will just come apart.

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

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.

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

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.

My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.

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.

I came from an intellectual family. Most were doctors, preachers, teachers, businessmen. My grandfather was a small businessman. His father was an abolitionist doctor, and his father was an immigrant from Germany.

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 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.

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.

You’d be surprised how many stupid mistakes I’ve made. I make stupid mistakes all the time, and some of them have been very big stupid mistakes.

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

I live in the country, so I get a fair amount of exercise. We heat our house with wood, so I split wood. We also live on a steep hill, and I have to rake and put in cross-stitches to keep the road from washing out when there’s a big rain.