David Rockefeller

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.

When you have a lot of resources, the most important thing is to have had good parents and to have been brought up by people who gave one the proper values.

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 do not like to be unkind.

I believe that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I hope the Guggenheim plan will be revived.

Wealth – any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.

I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one’s life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.

Abramovich’s got six yachts which are just gigantic and you think, ‘What a waste of money. He could transform so many people’s lives if he put that money to good use.

He is richest who is content with the least.

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

90% of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.

Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.

When I see something I like, I buy it, but I do not look for it madly.

My life with Roman was not the fairytale that the papers reported.

I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe, but in the whole world. I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia – I believe that is my greatest wealth.

very day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.

We went to theatres and museums with a crowd of bodyguards.

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

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

My grandfather, along with Carnegie, was a pioneer in philanthropy, which my father then practiced on a very large scale.