Pete Seeger Quotes

29 Quotes Sorted by Search Results (Descending)

About Pete Seeger

Peter Seeger (3 May 1919 – 27 January 2014) was a U.S. musician, political activist, and author; usually known as Pete Seeger.

Born: May 3rd, 1919

Died: January 27th, 2014

Categories: Folk singers, Activists, Humanists, Socialists, Unitarian Universalists, 2010s deaths, American folk music

Quotes: 29 sourced quotes total (includes 1 misattributed)

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Words (count)328 - 91
Search Results4320 - 170
This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.
Pete Seeger
• Inscription on his banjo, inspired by the inscription on Woody Guthrie's guitar : "This machine kills fascists"
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time for every purpose under heaven.
Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing? Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago? Where have all the flowers gone? Young girls have picked them everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn?
The key to the future of the world, is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.
Pete Seeger
• "Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94" New York Times (28 January 2014)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
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.
The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be.
Pete Seeger
• p. 95
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
There's no hope, but I may be wrong.
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.
Pete Seeger
• p. 90
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
A time to gain, a time to lose A time to rend, a time to sew A time of love, a time of hate A time of peace... I swear it's not too late.
In the largest sense, every work of art is protest. … A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it. … A hymn is a controversial song — sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out. …
One blue sky above us One ocean lapping all our shore One earth so green and round Who could ask for more And because I love you I'll give it one more try To show my rainbow race It's too soon to die.
The world will be saved by people fighting for their homes.
I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears.
Pete Seeger
• 1994 interview, quoted in Filene Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music (2000), p. 197
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
If singing were all that serious, frowning would make you sound better.
Pete Seeger
• p. 122
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
If it can't be … reused, repaired … then it should be … redesigned or removed from production.
The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger's Storytelling Book, 2001, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 0156013118, p. 220
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
We'll walk hand in hand We'll walk hand in hand We'll walk hand in hand some day... The whole wide world around some day.
Pete Seeger
• Lyrics added to "We Shall Overcome" by Seeger in the late 1940s, whose musical arrangement and renditions helped popularize the song among civil-rights activists in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also changed the primary lines from from "We Will Overcome" to "We Shall Overcome".
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
... And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well.
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.
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.
Pete Seeger
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
A good song can only do good, and I am proud of the songs I have sung. I hope to be able to continue singing these songs for all who want to listen, Republicans, Democrats, and independents.
Pete Seeger
• Statement to the court prior to his sentencing for contempt of Congress (1961); also quoted on NPR: Weekend Edition (2 July 2005)
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes)
At the audition, your assignment is to find something new in the song. Something you've never noticed before. A breath carried over, a thought that ties the whole thing together. Then take the risk and do it.
Pete Seeger
• p. 119
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
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 want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.
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. But if by some freak of history communism had caught up with this country, I would have been one of the first people thrown in jail.
"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.
Pete Seeger
• p. 117
• Source: Wikiquote: "Pete Seeger" (Quotes, How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981): Quotations from How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (1981) by David King Dunaway ISBN 0070181500 )
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning I'd hammer in the evening, All over this land. I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning, I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land... Well I got a hammer, And I got a bell, And I got a song to sing, all over this land. It's the hammer of Justice, It's the bell of Freedom, It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land.
I have been singing folksongs of America and other lands to people everywhere. I am proud that I never refused to sing to any group of people because I might disagree with some of the ideas of some of the people listening to me. I have sung for rich and poor, for Americans of every possible political and religious opinion and persuasion, of every race, color, and creed. The House committee wished to pillory me because it didn’t like some few of the many thousands of places I have sung for.

End Pete Seeger Quotes