Pete Seeger Quotes

Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.

When many little people in many little places do many little things, then the whole world changes.

Be assured that our individual actions, collectively, make a huge difference.

Saving the world happens one person at a time. Be at the front of the queue. Each one of us has to work hard to achieve our collective dream for a healthier planet.

People don't get involved with local charities or politics because they think it's hard to make a difference and the problem feels overwhelming. But I believe that if all I've time for this year is to write one letter to the local council, it's still worth doing.

The task for us now, if we are to survive, is to build the earth.

I don't know how to change the world but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody gon clean it up.

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)

Changing the world doesn't happen all at once. It isn't a big bang. It's an evolution, the sum of a billion tiny sparks. And some of those sparks will have to come from you.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!

I've always respected those who tried to change the world for the better, rather than just complain about it.

If there's a world here in a hundred years, it's going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!

If there is a world here in a hundred years, it's going to be saved by tens of millions of little things.

We save the world by being alive ourselves.

On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree

I think this generation can play a very important role. If we act now, this could be the first generation to witness universal education.

I don't think you can escape the environment we live in now.

The good news is I think there are a lot of young people certainly who were involved in my campaigns, and I think continue to be involved in work not just politically, but through nonprofits and other organizations, that can carry this hard work of democracy forward.

You can start changing our world for the better daily, no matter how small the action.

None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)

It's all connected. When you save any part of the world, you've saved the whole world. In fact, that's the only way it can be done.

My kids have lived experiences that could have never been duplicated otherwise. That's one thing about people who get involved in activism, you live so many experiences that otherwise they wouldn't be there. This is why peoples' lives are so enriched.

I look at Los Angeles and I ask myself, How can this ever be sustainable? And what are we contributing to that? Because we are all complicit. None of us is without blame. It's so difficult and it's so overwhelming and I think we have to make small choices in our own lives that can loom large collectively.

If we can muster up that degree of commitment and get away from the uniquely American perception that if something can't be done immediately it isn't worth doing, then I think the Hunger Movement, this small but growing minority of us, can have a truly significant impact.

I think the environmental movement is now so large and diverse that it's hard to talk of it as a single entity.