Pete Seeger Quotes

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Pete Seeger

Profession : Musician

Birth : May 3, 1919

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

Pete Seeger

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

Pete Seeger

I feel that my whole life is a contribution.

Pete Seeger

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

Pete Seeger

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

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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 get people to sing with me.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger

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.

Pete Seeger