We now live in a world where we are related by economics, politics, th — David Rockefeller

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

"I dont recall that I have said — and I dont think that I really feel — that we need a world government. We need governments of the world that work together and collaborate. But, I cant imagine that there would be any likelihood — or even that it would be desirable — to have a single government elected by the people of the world."

"There have been people — ever since Ive had any kind of position in the world — who have accused me of being ruler of the world. I have to say that I think for the large part, I would have to decide to describe them as crack pots. It makes no sense whatsoever, and isnt true, and wont be true, and to raise it as a serious issue seems to me to be irresponsible."

"Far from having an attachment to the past and to its codes, David Rockefeller, and really all the Rockefellers, were perpetually falling for everything that was new. They embraced every new educational theory, every new artistic style, every new architectural trend, every new business fad. And so when the 60s came along and seemed to represent yet another bright new future, many of the younger Rockefellers embraced that too, even if it meant the destruction of their place in society, and the older ones had nothing to say. … there never will be another person like David Rockefeller, a person who epitomized the Establishment and attracted conspiracy theories by the score. In the 60s, a new generation came up to destroy his world, and in response, he was willing to come pretty close to the borderline of incivility."

"I think that the best hope for peace and prosperity in the world is greater cooperation among nations, which in turn will be produced if both our governments and the people of our countries travel more and get to know each other better."

"If the disagreement was strong enough, we could end up pretty close to the borderline of incivility."

"Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation."

"The Good consists in the congruity of a thing with the laws of the reason and the nature of the will, and in its fitness to determine the latter to actualize the former: and it is always discursive. The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive."

"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."

"Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"

"All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — The bees are stirring — birds are on the wing — And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

"Taste is the intermediate faculty which connects the active with the passive powers of our nature, the intellect with the senses; and its appointed function is to elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes the ideas of the former."