Pete Seeger Quotes

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.

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

"So, are you going to practice today?" asks my inner mom. "Well, sure. But I've got one more phone call to make. The dishes are dirty. I have to feed the cat." I don't hate practicing. I resist it. The goddess of procrastination can seduce me by lifting one eyebrow. After decades of practicing or avoiding the same, walking over to the piano remains the hardest part.

This banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

The nice thing about poetry is that you’re always stretching the definitions of words. Lawyers and scientists and scholars of one sort or another try to restrict the definitions, hoping that they can prevent people from fooling each other. But that doesn’t stop people from lying.

Cezanne painted a red barn by painting it ten shades of color: purple to yellow. And he got a red barn. Similarly, a poet will describe things many different ways, circling around it, to get to the truth.

My father also had a nice little simile. He said, “The truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch. And you can’t lay your hand on it. All you do is circle around and point, and say, ‘It’s in there somewhere.

This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.

I’ve never sung anywhere without giving the people listening to me a chance to join in - as a kid, as a lefty, as a man touring the U.S.A. and the world, as an oldster. I guess it’s kind of a religion with me. Participation. That’s what’s going to save the human race.

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

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.

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

If it can't be … reused, repaired … then it should be … redesigned or removed from production.

All songwriters are links in a chain.

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

Well, normally I’m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big.” — Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)