Pete Seeger
There is something about participating; it is almost my religion. If the world is still here in 100 years, people will know the importance of participating, not just being spectators. Millions of small groups around the world, that don't necessarily all agree with one another, are made up of people who are not just sitting back waiting for someone to do things for them. No one can prove anything, but of course if I didn't believe it had some kind of power, I wouldn't be trying to do it.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Song
My mother wanted me to learn how to read music. She'd given fiddles to my two older brothers, but they'd rebelled. I came along and my father said, "Oh, let Peter enjoy himself." What she did was leave musical instruments all around the house. Whistles, marimbas, squeeze boxes, a piano and organ. By age six or seven, I could bang out a simple tune on almost anything. I developed a good ear, so I didn't learn to read music until I taught myself at age eighteen, 'cause I was hearing so many good songs I couldn't possibly remember them all.Collection: Mother
My father urged Alan [Lomax] not to repeat the mistakes of the European folklorists who, a century ago, had collected these peasant songs and then arranged them for part choir and accompanied them on piano, and then told the young people of their country, "Don't change a note, this is our sacred heritage." Father said, whether it's a fiddle tune or a gospel song, learn it right off the record from the people who grew up with it. Don't just learn it from a piece of paper.Collection: Country
It was only through the years that I realized what an absolutely extraordinarily thoughtful person Dr. King was.Collection: Kings
Way back in the old days, say in Europe of the Middle Ages, you had an aristocracy, and they could afford to pay for musicians. The kings and queens had musicians in the castles, and that developed into symphony orchestras and what we call "Classical music" now.Collection: Kings
Alan Lomax is the person who I think should be given major credit for what has been called the "Folk Song Revival." My father participated with him because my father was a musicologist and urged trained musicians to learn about "the vernacular."Collection: Song
The danger with the internet is that you don't need to think about music, you just search for it and you find the answer. Singing used to be part of everyday life. Women sang while pounding corn. Men sang while paddling canoes.Collection: Men
I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.Collection: Song
Most conservatives just want to turn back the clock to a time before the income tax - 100 years or so. I would like to turn the clock back thousands of years to a time when people lived in small communities and took care of each other.Collection: Years
The world will be solved by millions of small things.Collection: Teamwork
Singing with children in the schools has been the most rewarding experience of my life.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Feelings
The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.Collection: Thinking
Make the kind of music you love even if you never hear it on the air. This was the basic lesson I'd gotten from Alan [Lomax]. Alan said, Pete, look at all this great music around. You never hear it on the radio, but it's right there, great music.Collection: Air
Do-so is more important than say-so.Collection: Important
Food is one of the great organizing tools.Collection: Tools
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.Collection: Song
I don't think of God as an old white man with no belly button, nor even an old black woman with no belly button. But I agree that God is something eternal. Something cannot come out of nothing. I believe God is Everything. And I believe in infinity.Collection: Believe
All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics.Collection: Sports
RULERS should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung.Collection: Song
John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.Collection: Song
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?Collection: Want Something
There is an old Arabic proverb, 'When the king puts the poet on his payroll, he cuts off the tongue of the poet', so throughout the ages, people in power have liked to control music, they used to throw songwriters in jail throughout history, and were assassinated.Collection: Kings
In the United States, many people said you can't have folk music in the United States because you don't have any peasant class. But the funny thing was, there were literally thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who loved old time fiddling, ballads, banjo tunes, blues played on the guitar, spirituals and gospel hymns. These songs and music didn't fit into any neat category of art music nor popular music nor jazz. So gradually they said well let's call it folk music.Collection: Song
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson corresponded for 13 years before they died on the same day. They asked, "How can one have prosperity without commerce? How can one have commerce without luxury? How can one have luxury without corruption? How can you have corruption without the end of the Republic?" And they really didn't know the answer.Collection: Years
Song, songs kept them going and going; They didn't realize the millions of seeds they were sowing. They were singing in marches, even singing in jail. Songs gave them the courage to believe they would not fail.Collection: Song
When you play the 12-string guitar,you spend half your life tuning the instrument and the other half playing it out of tune.Collection: Guitar
This world is so full of hypocrisy, the only way you can be honest is to be a hermit.Collection: Hypocrisy
Get people to sing together and they'll act together too.Collection: People
According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something I'm listening to God.Collection: Atheist
Hope that there are many, many small leaders.Collection: Leader
Realize that little things lead to bigger things.Collection: Littles
I'd really rather put songs on people's lips than in their ears.Collection: Song
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?Collection: Learning
Most scientists know what needs to be done to save our Earth. But the politicians don't listen to them. They will listen to popular pressure; the people got to supply that.Collection: People
My job, is to show folks there's a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.Collection: Jobs
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.Collection: Teamwork
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.Collection: Mistake
You have a right to your opinion and I've got a right to mine. Period.Collection: Opinion
I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by.Collection: Song
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.Collection: Teamwork
There is a big, beautiful world that could be destroyed by selfishness and foolishness. We musicians have it without power to save it. In a small way, every single one of us counts.Collection: Music
To everything there is a season.Collection: Seasons
This banjo surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.Collection: Hate
Like most teachers, I'm just another sower of seeds.Collection: Teacher
The truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch. All you can do is circle around and say it's somewhere in there.Collection: Circles
The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.Collection: Country
There is no such thing as a wrong note ... just as long as you're singing along.Collection: Long