What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are.

Almost pathologically concerned with decorum he found himself unable for the first time to control his emotions in the presence of friends. He was one of the outstanding philanthropists of his time donating more than $100 million to various projects in Rochester; Cambridge Massachusetts; at two historically black colleges in the South; and in several European cities. For example he donated funds to establish the Eastman Dental Dispensary in 1916.

Roll film was also the basis for the invention of motion picture film in 1888 by the world's first film-makers Eadward Muybridge and Louis Le Prince and a few years later by their followers Léon Bouly Thomas Edison the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès. On March 14 1932 Eastman shot himself in the heart leaving a note which read "To my friends: my work is done. Why wait?"
The George Eastman House now operated as the International Museum of Photography and Film has been designated a National Historic Landmark.