David Rockefeller

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

One cannot expect to coast along and rise automatically to the top, no matter what friends you may have in the company. There may have been a time when, in large corporations, a person could rise simply because he had a stock interest or because he had friends in top management. That’s not true today. Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.

Mother’s interest in contemporary American artists emerged during the 1920s.

The Japanese have a wonderful sense of design and a refinement in their art. They try to produce beautiful paintings with the minimum number of strokes.

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

They decided to establish a museum of modern art where works by contemporary artists would be shown. Mother was viewed as a very progressive person, and not everybody liked the paintings she bought.

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the Sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.

The term ‘dissidents’ is pretty much restricted to critics on the enemy’s side, who we honor and respect. On our side, they’re subjected to one or another form of punishment.

So the fear of drugs and the fear of crime is very much stimulated by state and business propaganda. The National Justice Commission repeatedly points out that crime in the United States, while sort of high, is not off the spectrum for industrialized societies.

Deep Throat’s information, and in my view, courage, allowed the newspaper to use what he knew and suspected.

[Governments are] …without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

The North has been held back by out of touch Westminster politicians. Let’s hand power to northern communities to manage their transport systems.

NATO was built to counteract the Soviet Union in its day and time. At this point there is no threat coming from the Soviet Union, because there is no Soviet Union anymore. And where there was the Soviet Union once, there is now a number of countries, among them the new and democratic Russia.

If we speak calmly, in a businesslike fashion, let me draw your attention to the fact that Russia supplies arms to the legitimate government of Syria in full compliance with the norms of international law. We are not breaching any rules and norms.

The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters.

Our aims are absolutely clear: They are a high living standard in the country and a secure, free and comfortable life.

What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.

America is interested in re-arranging the region as it sees fit.

What is going on right now, it is unacceptable, it is wrong. However, it must be admitted that it is the result of inaccurate regulation, that was brought in recently in the sphere of energy, in energy resources.

The core of the anarchist tradition, as I understand it, is that power is always illegitimate, unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So the burden of proof is always on those who claim that some authoritarian hierarchic relation is legitimate.

The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.