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...

Songs won ‘ t save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders.

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

It was not going to be a graceful symbol of the past. It was going to try to restore the river.

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

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.

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.

Throughout history, the leaders of countries have been very particular of what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.

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.

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...

John Hammond persuaded Columbia to put it out as a single, and it was the only one I ever had that sold more than 20,000.

I feel that my whole life is a contribution.

Singing with children in the schools has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

Songs wont save the planet, but neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things; they can slip across borders.

I fought for peace in the fifties.

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.

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...

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.

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

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

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.

Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.

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

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

Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

Malvina was one of the great people of the 20th century,

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.