“How defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by its self-directed activity that the child, as years pass, finds its work, the thing it wants to do and for which it finally is willing to deny itself pleasure, ease, even sleep and comfort.”

Very often people who admit the facts, who are willing to see that Mr. Rockefeller has employed force and fraud to secure his ends, justify him by declaring, ‘It’s business.’ That is, ‘it’s business’ has come to be a legitimate excuse for hard dealing, sly tricks, special privileges.

They fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting, by ruthless efficiency of organization.

Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.

An excuse which, if carried to its legitimate conclusion, would leave our business men weeping on one another’s shoulders over human frailty, while they picked one another’s pockets.

The methods it employs with such acumen, persistency, and secrecy are employed by all sorts of business men, from corner grocers up to bankers. If exposed, they are excused on the ground that this is business.

Life is but a collection of habits.

The quest of the truth had been born in me – the most tragic and incomplete, as well as the most essential, of man’s quests.

It is not alone that justice is wounded by denying women a part in the making of the civilized world.

A more immediate wrong is the way the movement for a fuller, freer life for all human beings is hampered.

The athlete who abuses the rules, receives, we shall have gone a long way toward making commerce a fit pursuit for our young men.

Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists – with it all things are possible.

As a consequence business success is sanctified, and, practically, any methods which achieve it are justified by a larger and larger class.

The economic advantages of sobriety have never been doubtful.

Many men ridicule the idea that it can be scientifically handled. They tell us the unemployed have always been with us, and always must be. It is the oldest reason in the world for tolerating injustice and misery.

One of the permanent possessions of the human heart is the memory of its noble enthusiasms.

The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else — men, guns, ammunition.

There’s smoke in my iris, but I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids

The mother’s battle for her child with sickness, with poverty, with war, with all the forces of exploitation and callousness that cheapen human life needs to become a common human battle, waged in love and in the passion for survival.

It’s hard to stand around and make conversation with people I’ve learned. But I do want to be the guy that can do it easily.

…I’ve never had a dream in my life, Because a dream is what you wanna do, but still haven’t pursued.

Dream a little dream, Or you can live a little dream I’d rather live it ‘Cause dreamers always chase But never get it

Armchair hater, I wouldn’t piss on your coffin But when I see your picture I draw dicks on it.

I don’t think anyone can argue that I’m not trying to do my own thing at least.

For a guy who didn’t expect a fan base whatsoever, I’m pretty stoked. People say they don’t understand it, and I say that’s okay.