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Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple.

Pete Seeger

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Pete Seeger
Age: 94 †
Born: 1919
Born: May 3
Died: 2014
Died: January 27
Banjoist
Guitarist
Mandolinist
Musicologist
Peace Activist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Street Artist
New York City
New York
Peter Seeger
Idiot
Complicated
Genius
Takes
Simple

More quotes by Pete Seeger

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I still prefer to hear [Bob] Dylan acoustic, some of his electric songs are absolutely great. Electric music is the vernacular of the second half of the twentieth century, to use my father's old term.
Pete Seeger
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If there is a world here in a hundred years, it's going to be saved by tens of millions of little things.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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I have to resist the temptation to want to learn everything. You know, you can't. You have to restrict yourself at some time, or else you find yourself just being spread too thin. And already I think I try too many things.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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I believe that all technological societies tend to self-destruct. The reason is that the very things that make us a successful technological society, such as our curiosity, our ambition and determination, will also cause us to fall.
Pete Seeger
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I feel that my whole life is a contribution.
Pete Seeger
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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
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I tell kids, don't trust the media. The media with their emphasis on fame is helping to destroy this country, helping destroy the human race. It's the plug-in drug.
Pete Seeger
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Participation - that's what's gonna save the human race.
Pete Seeger
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The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem to be solved.
Pete Seeger
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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 he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)
Pete Seeger
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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
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Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.
Pete Seeger
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After visits to several Communist countries (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, East Germany, Vietnam, China, Cuba), I feel strongly that most revolutionary types around the world don't realize the importance of freedom of the press and the air, a right to peaceably assemble and discuss anything, including the dangers of such discussions.
Pete Seeger
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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.
Pete Seeger
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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
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I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American.
Pete Seeger
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Throughout history the leaders of the countries have been very particular about what songs should be sung. We know the power of songs.
Pete Seeger
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Many Americans knew their lives and their souls were being struggled for, and they fought for it. And I felt I should carry on.
Pete Seeger