20th-century Philanthropist Quotes

Oprah Winfrey

George Soros

David Rockefeller

Thom Yorke

Carlos Slim Helú

Ted Turner

Armand Hammer

You can't accomplish anything worthwhile if you inhibit yourself

Business is globalizing so fast that it has led to the often quoted 'clash of civilizations'. People simply have not had time to get to know and understand people of other cultures sufficiently to live and work in harmony.

To have simple structures and organizations with minimal hierarchical levels, with human development and in house training of executive functions. To have flexibility and speed in making decisions. Operating with the advantages of the small business, which are what comprise big businesses.

Carlos Slim Helú

There's a big difference between education and knowledge. The moment that we don't invest in educating Jewish children according to the roots that were the basis of our education for thousands of years, we are knowledge-givers rather than educators.

You have to learn all the big ideas in the key disciplines in a way that they're in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life. If you do that, I solemnly promise you that one day you'll be walking down the street and you'll look to your right and left and you'll think "my heavenly days, I'm now one of the few competent people in my whole age cohort." If you don't do it, many of the brightest of you will live in the middle ranks or in the shallows.

I rise today to commemorate one of the most fateful days in the history of the State of Colorado, the day the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant outside of Boulder nearly became America's own Chernobyl, some 30 years before that terrible accident in the Ukraine.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

David Rockefeller

Learning to earn a living is only half the job. The other half is to make life worthwhile and meaningful.

Sathya Sai Baba

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.

Each of us has a purpose for living beyond our own survival and pleasure. Every individual is like a thread in a beautiful tapestry with a vital contribution to make, not only to the sustenance of life as we know it, but in the creation and development of more beneficial expressions of life.

Devotion is not drama. Devotion is a way of living. Devotion is the way you walk, the way you breathe, and the way your heart beats.

"My big problem with corporate structure is this bizarre sense of loyalty you're supposed to feel — towards what is basically a virus. It grows or dies, like any virus. And you use it for your own selfish ends." - source

The worst sin, the ultimate sin for me, in anything, is to be bored.

If the influence of luck is a delusion, then all I can say is that the delusion is virtually universal.

This is a town that doesn't just want you to fail, it wants you to die.

I'm rich. I'm warmhearted. I'm wonderful. How many frames of film are left in the camera?

Whereas the entire meaning of the Quran must easily be interpreted by the lives of Muslims, Islam's followers abandoned its essence.

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Time is the most valuable thing you have - and I'm not just talking about the minutes for which you're paid.

Education is a sacred thing, and the pledge to build a school is a commitment that cannot be surrendered or broken, regardless of how long it may take, how many obstacles must be surmounted, or how much money it will cost. It is by such promises that the balance sheet of one's life is measured.

Humanity may destroy the possibilities for life on earth unless the freedom and power that we have acquired are channeled in new creative directions by a spiritual awareness and moral commitment that transcend nationalism, racism, sexism, religious sectarianism, anthropocentrism, and the dualism between human culture and nature. This is the great issue for the 1990s and the twenty-first century.

Steven Clark Rockefeller

To be successful you must recognise your weaknesses and employ people with complementary skills.

Duncan Bannatyne

Each person's destiny is not a matter of chance; it's a matter of choice. It's determined by what we say, what we do, and whom we trust.

S. Truett Cathy

Employees want to believe their company has a meaningful purpose. They want to know that their own job is worthwhile. They want to make a difference. If all three of these conditions are accomplished, bottom line results will follow.

No matter how horrid a person may appear on the surface, if you dig deeper, you will find some nice, unexpected little quality.

The herd instinct seems to be the strongest human emotion, one that the race is constantly breeding off as the mavericks are liquidated. Happiness is running with the crowd.

John Train (investment advisor)