I think I am basically a happy person.

If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.

The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.

I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. In order to appreciate cultures of another nation, one needs to go there, know the people and mingle with the culture of that country. One way to do that, if one is lucky enough, is to buy things from those cultures.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

I met many Russians over the years who were convinced my brothers and I were a cabal, pulling strings behind the scenes to shape American policy. The Soviets had no conception of how a pluralistic democracy works and believed elected officials, up to and including the president of the United States, were only figureheads acting out the roles dictated to them by the real "powers that be" - in this case, my family.

Much corporate giving is charitable in nature rather than philanthropic.