Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Pete Seeger, born Peter Seeger

American Folk Singer of Protest Music

"Do-so is more important than "say-so.""

"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."

"Education is what you get when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't. "

"Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple. "

"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."

"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 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."

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

"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."

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

"I feel that my whole life is a contribution."

"I fought for peace in the fifties."

"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."

"I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life."

"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."

"I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it."

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

"If singing were all that serious, frowning would make you sound better."

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

"If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production. "

"In a world of private property, if something isn't owned by somebody, it's going to be misused by somebody else."

"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."

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

"In a few lines of poetry he captured one of the great contradictions of the world: the heroism of people doing something, even knowing it was a crazy something. And he showed how the establishment has used music for thousands of years to support its way of thinking."

"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."

"Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history."

"Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders."

"Some may find them [songs] merely diverting melodies. Others may find them incitements to Red revolution. And who will say if either or both is wrong? Not I."

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

"The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be."

"Technology will save us if it doesn't wipe us out first."

"Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business. But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them."

"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."

"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."

"And in the sixties, during the Vietnam war, when anarchists and pacifists and socialists, Democrats and Republicans, decent-hearted Americans, all recoiled with horror at the bloodbath, we came together."

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

"I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches."

"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."

"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."

"I know many beautiful songs from your home county, Carbon, and Monroe, and I hitchhiked through there and stayed in the homes of miners."

"I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, that I am any less of an American than anyone else."

"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."

"In the sixties, during the Vietnam war, when anarchists and pacifists and socialists, Democrats and Republicans, decent-hearted Americans, all recoiled with horror at the bloodbath, we came together."

"I love my country very deeply, sir."

"Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on."

"My father, Charles Seeger, got me into the Communist movement. He backed out around '38. I drifted out in the 50's."

"There's no hope, but I may be wrong."

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

"Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties."