Business Leaders
Statesman
Other Notables

Business Leaders
 
"In art and culture, we find a vibrant expression of the qualities we seek in our business and our society - ones that foster innovation and diversity while taking performance to new heights through excellence. The arts educate and let imaginations soar. They improve the quality of life in our communities. They inspire our own creativity at work and at home. Art and culture are fundamental to our society, and they tell the story of who we are today."

Geoffrey Bible
Retired Chairman and CEO
Philip Morris Companies Inc.

"Being a member of the Kansas City BCA is a win-win-win-win for our metro-area companies. It's a win for the artists with whom they partner, a win for the Kansas City community, a win for the employees, and a win for the member businesses. Some member companies have long been supporters of the arts and others are just getting started. For both, the Kansas City BCA provides the tools to help them articulate the business case for supporting the arts and encourages them to take that support on to the next level."

Henry W. Bloch
Honorary Chairman and Co-Founder
H&R Block Inc.

"The arts are the best expression of true quality. By supporting the arts and associating with the arts, we strengthen our company's commitment to high-quality management and products. We believe that our efforts with the arts serve the interests of the corporation and our stockholders, as well as the communities in which we work and live."

John H. Bryan
Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Sara Lee Corporation

"The arts give us the opportunity to align ourselves with forces beyond day-to-day business survival. They enrich our lives and enhance our community."

Richard Dixon Elliott
President and Owner
Maverick Southern Kitchens

"The arts, as a means of human expression, transmit culture from one generation to the next. By enriching every aspect of life, the arts contribute to the quality of life in every community."

David R. Goode
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Norfolk Southern Corporation

“The same creativity that fuels our best inventions and our best business management techniques is the same creativity that provides our best art, literature and music.”

John C. Hampton
Chairman of the Board
Hampton Affiliates

“Art in our workplace contributes to a pleasant work environment and acts to inspire creativity. The consultative process in the financial services industry is itself a form of art, a metaphor that we use frequently for the financial planning process.”

Thomas A. James
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Raymond James Financial, Inc.

"Great art is really a lesson in geography. It knows no boundaries. It transcends artificial barriers. And so does good business. To operate effectively in the world today, a business person is not boxed in by borders, not limited by languages. That is also a primary quality of art, and this is why partnerships between business and the arts work -- both for the arts and for business."

Donald M. Kendall
Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
PepsiCo Inc.

"Our support provides young people with opportunities to achieve their potential, which would otherwise be unavailable to them. At the same time, we are helping to build the foundation for a brighter future for our entire community."

Joseph H. Lemieux
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Owens-Illinois

"The arts are a major force in the growth and development of our global business world. Through the arts, people learn creativity and innovation. The partnership between the arts and business improves not only economic development but also the social fabric and enlightenment of society."

Raymond D. Nasher
Founder
The Nasher Company

"People who create in our companies - whether they be scientists, marketing experts or business strategists - benefit from exposure to the arts. People cannot create when they work and live in a culturally sterile environment....The economic benefits of the arts greatly transcend and outlive any of the normal cycles....That is why business invests in the arts -- even when times are tough, and when there is increased pressure to manage money carefully."

John D. Ong
Chairman Emeritus
The BFGoodrich Company

“Supporting the arts and related artistic programming makes good business sense. Not only do the arts enrich the communities in which our employees live and work by offering a diverse range of cultural expression, but they are also a vital component to building strong, economically sound communities.”

James F. Orr
Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer
Convergys Corporation

"The arts give richness and meaning to life. They preserve our cultural heritage and illuminate the human situation. We consider it our obligation to provide support for projects that enhance the quality of life in the communities where we practice law. The most significant contribution we can make to arts organizations is our legal and business expertise directed toward the areas of greatest need, provided either entirely pro bono or at greatly reduced costs."

Harry M. Reasoner
Partner
Vinson & Elkins L.L.P.

"In our increasingly mechanized and computerized world, the arts afford a measure of consolation and reassurance to our individuality, a measure of beauty and human emotion that can reach and move most men. They are indispensable to the achievement of our great underlying concern for the individual, for the fullest development of the potential hidden in every human being."

David Rockefeller
Former President and Chairman
The Chase Manhattan Bank
Founder, Business Committee for the Arts, Inc.

"Expect criticism and complaint. But if you always insist on quality and excellence as the criteria of making choices, you may make mistakes and others may disagree with your choices, but you will be standing on firm ground and will be able to face criticism with equanimity."

David Rockefeller
Former President and Chairman
The Chase Manhattan Bank
Founder, Business Committee for the Arts, Inc.

"To support the arts is its own reward. For business, it builds better communities, develops more tolerant and broadly educated consumers and creates in employees a sense of pride in the social responsibility of their employers. For our society, it enriches each of us through understanding the strength of multicultural diversity. For an individual, those who give their time, substance and intellect to the arts discover a new quality of life, the treasure of knowledge and self-improvement."

Henry T. Segerstrom
Managing Partner
C.J. Segerstrom & Sons

"The arts thrill us, challenge us, move us to joy and sometimes to tears, and help us understand and respect diverse lifestyles and cultures. Shugoll Research wants to help share the excitement of the arts with our children today, so they become the arts audiences of tomorrow."

Mark Shugoll
Chief Executive Officer
Shugoll Research

"The company's goal is to make quality art accessible to a wide range of people, particularly families, our primary customers. As a result of our investment in the arts, we have become known as a company that cares. It also gives our employees a sense of pride in working for the company. And we like to think it provides an example that will inspire other companies to do more."

Robert J. Ulrich
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Target Corporation

"At Bayer, we look for scientists who are well-educated, multi-dimensional and socially concerned. Bayer believes that the arts, along with the sciences, provide challenges for the mind -- challenges that encourage creativity in all aspects of life. As a company which is highly dependent on creativity through its research and development, we recognize that it is in a corporation's best interest and its obligation to support the arts."

Helge H. Wehmeier
Former President and Chief Executive Officer
Bayer Corporation

"...The arts are a powerful stimulus for human creativity; effective instruments for public awareness; and a major sign of a nationís health, civilization and culture, which serve to enrich and improve society...."

A. Thomas Young
Former Executive Vice President
Lockheed Martin Corporation

Statesmen

"From music and dance to painting and sculpting, the arts allow us to explore new worlds and to view life from another perspective. They also encourage individuals to sharpen their skills and abilities and to nurture their imagination and intellect."

George W. Bush
U.S. President

"In these challenging times, when some are questioning the value of the arts and when public support for the arts is under siege from so many quarters, we must remember that these pursuits are not a luxury that we can live without -- they are a vital part of our national character, the motivating spirit that makes us who we are."

William J. Clinton
U.S. President

"I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the root of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

John F. Kennedy
U.S President

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of experience. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist...faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibly against an intrusive society and an offensive state."

John F. Kennedy
U.S President

"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battles or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit."

John F. Kennedy
U.S. President

"In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations."

Ronald Reagan
U.S. President

"Young people who are involved in making something beautiful today are less likely to turn to acts of violence and destruction tomorrow. The arts - whether they be during or after school - provide opportunities for youth from all backgrounds to do something positive and creative with their talents and their time. We all need to support the arts. In doing so, we are telling America's youth that we believe in them and value what they can be."

Janet Reno
Former Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice

Other Notables

"An intellectual is a person who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger."

Anonymous

"Life is very nice, but it lacks form. It's the aim of art to give it some."

Jean Anouilh
Playwright

"The business of every art is to bring something into existence, and the practice of an art involves the study of how to bring into existence something which is capable of having such an existence and has its efficient cause in the maker not in itself."

Aristotle
Philosopher

"Music, of all the arts, has the most influence on the passions, and the legislator should give it the greatest encouragement."

Napoleon Bonaparte
Politician

"There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books."

Charlie Chaplin
Actor

"Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse."

Sir Winston Churchill
Prime Minister for Great Britain

"Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art."

Leonardo Da Vinci
Artist

"No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art."

T.S. Eliot
Poet

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

Albert Einstein
Scientist

"To direct the genius and resources of our country to useful improvements, to the sciences, the arts, education, the amendment of the public mind and morals -- in such pursuits lie real honor and the nation's glory."

Robert Fulton
Inventor

"The artist represents the consciousness and memory of his times."

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Artist

"No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive."

Mohandas Gandhi
Politician

"The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity."

Alberto Giacometti
Artist

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need."

Kahlil Gibran
Poet

"Anything can make us look, only art can make us see."

Archibald MacLeigh
Poet and Writer

"I think the purpose of theater is not to deepen the mysteries of life, but to celebrate the mysteries of life. That’s what a good play does, and that’s what a good play has done for ten thousand years."

David Mamet
Playwright

“Art is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.”

Robert Motherwell
Artist

"Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity."

Modest Mussorgsky
Composer

“I think all great inventions are built on rejections.”

Louise Nevelson
Artist

"We are a landscape of all we have seen."

Isamu Noguchi
Artist

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

Pablo Picasso
Artist

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

Pablo Picasso
Artist

"Only through art can we get outside of ourselves and know another's view of the universe which is not the same as ours and see landscapes which would otherwise have remained unknown to use like the landscape of the moon."

Marcel Proust
Writer

"Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is brutality."

John Ruskin
Author

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."

Carl Sagan
Writer

“Art is borderless and can be experience as an integral part of all cultures.”

Todd Siler
Artist

"The art of our era is not art, but technology. Today Rembrandt is painting automobiles; Shakespeare is writing research reports; Michaelangelo is designing more efficient bank lobbies."

Howard Sparks
Writer

"Art is like a staple, like bread or wine or a warm winter coat in winter. Man's spirit grows hungry for art in the same way his stomach for food."

Irving Stone
Writer

"The theater is the primary evidence of a nation's culture."

James Grover Thurber
Humorist and Cartoonist

"Music is the shorthand of emotion."

Leo Tolstoy
Writer

"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit."

John Updike
Author

"A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator."

Paul Valéry
Poet, Writer and Critic

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."

Andy Warhol
Artist

"Some of the sharpest traders we know are artists, and some of the best salesmen we know are writers."

E.B. White
Journalist and Writer

"Fertilization of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art."

Alfred North Whitehead
Mathematician and Philosopher

"It is through art, and through art only, that we realize our perfection; through art and through art only, that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence."

Oscar Wilde
Writer

"Space is the breath of art."

Frank Lloyd Wright
Architect