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About this quote

What does it mean?
Political leadership can seem unqualified upon close inspection.
In plain terms
Meeting a leader might make you question their path to power.
What can you take from it?
Appearances and competence do not always match.

Where it applies

  • politics
  • career review
  • public scrutiny

Putting it to work

  • verify credentials
  • question authority
  • assess fit

Questions to consider

  • How do leaders get selected?
  • What makes you doubt a leader?

Another view

It overlooks the political system that chose them.

More from Henry Kissinger

  1. Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

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  2. Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.

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  3. University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

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