Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Interpretation
Most politicians are viewed negatively because of the few who act poorly, impacting the perception of the entire group.
This quote by Henry A. Kissinger highlights the tendency to generalize the behavior of all politicians based on the actions of a minority. It suggests that the negative actions of a small percentage of politicians can tarnish the reputation of the majority, making it important to critically assess individuals rather than relying on broad stereotypes.
In practice
During a political debate, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of individual accountability in politics.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
Excessive taxation . . . will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election.
There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President.
We vainly fancy ourselves above the ugly informing and paranoia of the right-wing McCarthy era, but in the 21st century, the Left has fashioned a mirror image.
Corruption has reached an unacceptable level. It devours resources that could be devoted to the citizens. It impedes the proper carrying out of market rules and penalizes the honest and capable.
The socialism of centralised state control of industry and production, is dead. It misunderstood the nature and development of a modern market economy. It failed to recognise that the state and public sector can become a vested interest capable of oppression as much as the vested interests of wealth and capital. it was based on a false view of class that became too rigid to explain or illuminate the nature of class division today.
There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.
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