The role of a museum of modern art is to make a good selection and identify what we believe to be the coming movements, and that requires taste.
David RockefellerRead
Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted from our active international role during the past half-century.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes populists and isolationists for overlooking the advantages of international engagement.
David Rockefeller's quote highlights the tendency of populists and isolationists to dismiss the positive outcomes that have arisen from an active and engaged international stance over the last fifty years. This sentiment implies that, despite the criticisms of global involvement, there are significant benefits that such participation has afforded, both politically and economically, which should not be ignored.
In practice
In a debate about foreign policy, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of global engagement.
The role of a museum of modern art is to make a good selection and identify what we believe to be the coming movements, and that requires taste.
The Japanese have a wonderful sense of design and a refinement in their art. They try to produce beautiful paintings with the minimum number of strokes.
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.
I realize how fortunate I have been; mine has been a wonderful life.
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.
In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last.
At least from a national security standpoint, none of the problems the U.S. and U.K. face will become easier to solve if the U.K. is out of the E.U.; on the contrary, I fear that a 'Brexit' would only make our world even more dangerous and difficult to manage.
The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.
It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates. They're rehearsed appearances.
Sanctions did indeed help to bring Iran to the negotiating table. But sanctions did not stop the advance of Iran's nuclear program. Negotiations have done that, and it is in our interest not to deny ourselves the chance to achieve a long-term, comprehensive solution that would deny Iran a nuclear weapon.
Democracy cannot be static. Whatever is static is dead.
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