Quotes from David Rockefeller

we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States... If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

Instead, he defined individualism as the freedom to achieve and the obligation to return something of value to the community that had nurtured and sustained him. I believe this was both the source and object of his philanthropy. As

Some have said that Grandfather and Father, along with Andrew Carnegie, invented modern philanthropy. That may be true, but it may also claim too much. What the two of them did was emphasize the need to move charitable activities away from treating the symptoms of social problems toward understanding and then eliminating the underlying causes. This led them both to embrace a scientific

You know, gentlemen, that I do not owe any personal income tax. But nevertheless, I send a small check, now and then, to the Internal Revenue Service out of the kindness of my heart.

Courting Peggy McGrath provided me with a very pleasant diversion and eventually with the most important relationship of my life.

The role of a museum of modern art is to make a good selection and identify what we believe to be the coming movements, and that requires taste.

Only once in my life was I on the edge of incivility. I do not like to be unkind.

Money can add very much to one's ability to lead a constructive life, not only pleasant for oneself, but, hopefully, beneficial to others.

Mother liked beauty wherever she found it, and she found it in many different places, both in nature and in contemporary art. And that's where they pretty much parted company. Father... anything that was abstract would to him automatically be not very good.

Successful charitable fund-raising has much in common with managing a business: It requires leadership, persistence, and creativity.

MoMA is doubling its space, and I decided to raise the money for it.

Eventually, most people felt MoMA had filled a very important gap.

I realize how fortunate I have been; mine has been a wonderful life.

I can only say that I have had a wonderful life.

I think I am basically a happy person.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

The conventional notions of art have changed, and a lot of things done today are considered works of art that would have been rejected in the past.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the current economic recession, which is particularly powerful in New York City, have put a number of building plans on hold for the time being.

I was brought up feeling that art is a very important part of one's life. It's something that I not only enjoy, it's something I can share with others.

I never kept a diary, but I wrote detailed notes of my travels.

Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.

By a museum, I assume you mean an institution dedicated to the events of Sept. 11 and the aftermath. If that is done with sensitivity, I think it would be most appropriate.

Money can add very much to one's ability to lead a constructive life, not only pleasant for oneself, but, hopefully, beneficial to others. My grandfather, along with Carnegie, was a pioneer in philanthropy, which my father then practiced on a very large scale. The Christian ethic played an essential part in my upbringing.