Explore Quotes by Pete Seeger

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 fought for peace in the fifties.

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.

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

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

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

I feel that my whole life is a contribution.

I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American.

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.

Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.

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

Being generous of spirit is a wonderful way to live.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Now somebody will ask me, Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference? And I have to confess I can't prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air.

And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world.