Famous John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Quotes
“As for charity, it is injurious unless it helps the recipient become independent of it.”
Interview with Samuel Johnson Woolf, quoted in Drawn from Life (1932)
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Quotes
Address to the students of Brown University, quoted in Ida Tarbell (1904) The History of the Standard Oil Company
Context: The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God.
“I took responsibility early and, like my parents, I was serious.”
John D. Rockefeller, Jr: A Portrait (1956), p. 32
John D. Rockefeller, Jr: A Portrait (1956)
Context: I was born into it [wealth] and there was nothing I could do about it. It was there, like air or food or any other element. The only question with wealth is what to do with it. It can be used for evil purposes or it can be an instrumentality for constructive social living.
“My mother and father raised but one question: Is it right, is it duty?”
As quoted in The Rich man and the Kingdom : John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Protestant establishment (1995) by Albert F. Schenkel, p. 13
