Quotes about percent
page 3

Chad Johnson photo

“There are two things for Brother Harris this week. The bad thing is, he has to cover me. The good is he can save 15 percent by switching his auto insurance to Geico.”

Chad Johnson (1978) American football player, wide receiver

"Bengals report: Notes, quotes" http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/teams/report/CIN/9006407, CBS Sports (27 October 2005)

Hunter S. Thompson photo
Grover Norquist photo

“Yeah, the good news about the move to abolish the death tax, the tax where they come and look at how much money you've got when you die, how much gold is in your teeth and they want half of it, is that — you're right, there's an exemption for — I don't know — maybe a million dollars now, and it's scheduled to go up a little bit. However, 70 percent of the American people want to abolish that tax. Congress, the House and Senate, have three times voted to abolish it. The president supports abolishing it, so that tax is going to be abolished. I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70-plus percent of Americans want to abolish the death tax, because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who played at the politics of hate and envy and class division will say, 'Yes, well, that's only 2 percent,' or as people get richer 5 percent in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust. 'Well, it's only a small percentage,' you know. 'I mean, it's not you, it's somebody else.' And this country, people who may not make earning a lot of money the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just. If you've paid taxes on your income once, the government should leave you alone. Shouldn't come back and try and tax you again.”

Grover Norquist (1956) Conservative Lobbyist

interview with NPR's Terry Gross on the program Fresh Air, October 2, 2003.
2003

Joe Biden photo
Gary Johnson photo

“BRAC, in the mid-90s suggested that 20 percent more U. S. bases, in fact, could be cut. That hasn’t taken place because the political will hasn’t been there to accomplish that. We would bring that to the table, a 20 percent reduction in military spending.”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Interview on Morning Joe. http://time.com/4483779/gary-johnson-aleppo-transcript/ (September 8, 2016)
2016

Derren Brown photo

“The Barnum Statements are very famous and well known about and there’s a great experiment… There’s a terrific experiment that was done on this with students. I’ve filmed this myself. We did it with three different groups of people across the world, where you have… everybody in the group is given a reading, a personality reading. Normally beforehand there’s some nonsense about asking for their birth date or getting some objects off them - so there’s some sort of process apparently involved - and they’re given a reading. And it’s a long reading, it’s a very detailed personality reading and they all get one individually, they’re all asked to read it and, invariably, they will all say afterwards that it’s very, very accurate, that it was not at all vague or ambiguous or what people might expect and they’ll give it 85, 90, 95 percent accuracy. I’ve seen this happen and people are amazed by it. And then you get them to swap with each other and say “perhaps you can identify someone else by their reading”. Then they realise they’ve all been given exactly the same thing which was written months ago before I even met them and the statements that fill those sorts of readings are generally Barnum Statements. Barnum statements are things which essentially apply to anybody – this is only part of the cold-reading skill but it’s a major part of it… PT Barnum… “something for everyone” and, famously “a sucker is born every minute””

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

Other TV and web appearances, The Enemies of Reason (Richard Dawkins)

“Between 1903 and 1991 the value of the Yankees appreciated at a compound annual rate of 11.4 percent.”

Andrew Zimbalist (1947) American economist

Source: Baseball And Billions - Updated edition - (1992), Chapter 3, Franchise Finances, p. 68.

Sam Harris photo

“Unreason is now ascendant in the United States—in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

[Sam Harris, 2 August 2005, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-politics-of-ignorance_b_5053.html, "The Politics of Ignorance", The Huffington Post, 2006-10-16]
2000s

Bill Gates photo

“In the last 20 years, thanks to your hard work, polio has declined by 99 percent. In 1988, 350,000 people got polio. By 2008, the number was down to just a couple of thousand.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Speeches/2009/01/Bill-Gates-Rotary-International "Bill Gates - Rotary International" Bill & Melinda Gates foundation (21 January 2009)
Regarding Bill And Melinda Gates' Polio Efforts (2009)

Prakash Javadekar photo

“Historical responsibility is a fact. It cannot be wished away. We are just 2.4 percent of the world's historical emissions.”

Prakash Javadekar (1951) Indian politician

On the carbon emissions of post-industrial nations compared to India's, as quoted in " India says rich world has responsibility to curb climate change http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N10Z08A20150824", Reuters (24 August 2015)

“The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal probably eats better than 30 percent of the people in the world.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Steven Keith (December 26, 2007) "The Food Guy Food, how do I love thee?", Charleston Daily Mail, p. P1D.
Attributed

A. James Gregor photo
Franz von Papen photo
Michael Moore photo

“They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet… in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks. We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. National Geographic produced a survey which showed that 60 percent of 18-25 year olds don't know where Great Britain is on a map. And 92 percent of us don't own a passport.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

On the American public, as quoted in "The Awkward Conscience of a Nation" in The Daily Mirror (3 November 2003); also partly quoted in "The company they keep" by Michael Barone, in U.S.News & World Report (12 July 2004) http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/040712/12barone.htm
2004

John Derbyshire photo

“Ninety percent of paid work is time-wasting crap. The world gets by on the other ten.”

John Derbyshire (1945) writer

Source: Wishing I’d Played the Ponies http://takimag.com/article/wishing_id_played_the_ponies/print#axzz3xNaU2RAk, Taki's Magazine, June 16, 2011.

Kent Hovind photo
Buckminster Fuller photo
Garry Kasparov photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“If there is one mental vice, indeed, which sets off the American people from all other folks who walk the earth … it is that of assuming that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that ninety-nine percent of them are wrong.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"The American: His New Puritanism," http://books.google.com/books?id=tn9HAAAAYAAJ&q=%22If+there+is+one+mental+vice+indeed+which+sets+off+the+American+people+from+all+other+folks+who+walk+the+earth%22+%22it+is+that+of%22+%22that+every+human+act+must+be+either+right+or+wrong+and+that+ninety-nine+percent+of+them+are+wrong%22&pg=RA1-PA87#v=onepage The Smart Set (February 1914)
1910s

Cassandra Clare photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African-Americans. If Hillary Clinton's goal was to inflict pain on the African-American community, she could not have done a better job. It's a disgrace. Tonight, I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future. The inner cities of our country have been run by the Democratic party for more than fifty years. Their policies have reduced only poverty, joblessness, failing schools and broken homes. It's time to hold Democratic politicians accountable for what they have done to these communities. At what point do we say, "enough?" It's time to hold failed leaders accountable for their results not just their empty words over and over again. Look at what the Democratic party has done to the city as an example and there are many others of Detroit: forty percent of Detroit's residents live in poverty. Half of all Detroit residents do not work and cannot work and can't get a job. Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime. This is the legacy of the Democratic politicians who have run this city. This is the result of the policy agenda embraced by Hillary Clinton: thirty-three thousand emails gone. The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership. Look how much African-American communities suffered under Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump. What do you have to lose? I say it again, what do you have to lose. Look, what do you have to lose? You're living your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth is unemployed? What the hell do you have to lose? And at the end of four years, I guarantee you, that I will get over ninety-five percent of the African-American vote. I promise you.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Speech to the African-American community in Dimondale, Michigan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5B5m1S5VTA (August 19, 2016)
2010s, 2016, August

Ben Bernanke photo
Amory B. Lovins photo
Norman Borlaug photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Kent Hovind photo
Roger Ebert photo

“The audience I joined was perhaps 80 percent female. I heard some sniffles and glimpsed some tears, and no wonder. Eat Pray Love is shameless wish-fulfillment, a Harlequin novel crossed with a mystic travelogue, and it mercifully reverses the life chronology of many people, which is Love Pray Eat.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eat-pray-love-2010 of Eat Pray Love (11 Aug 2010)
Reviews, Two star reviews

Bill Bryson photo

“I was attracted to studies of cancer families because epidemiological studies show that virtually all cancers manifest a tendency to aggregate in families. Close relatives of a cancer patient are at increased risk of that neoplasm, and perhaps other forms of cancer. The excess site-specific cancer risk is exceptionally high for carriers of certain cancer genes, in whom the attack rate can approach 100 percent. In candidate cancer families, the possibility that clustering is on the basis of chance must be excluded through epidemiological studies that establish the presence of an excess cancer risk. Predisposed families are candidates for laboratory studies to identify the inherited susceptibility factors. These investigations have led to the identification and isolation of human cancer genes, the tumor suppressor genes. These cancer genes are among more than 200 single-gene traits associated with the development of cancer. Approximately a dozen inherited susceptibility genes have been definitively identified, and many more are being sought. From studies of retinoblastoma and other rare cancers, important new information was generated about the fundamental biology of cancers that arise in many patients. Isolation of an inherited cancer susceptibility gene provides opportunities for presymptomatic testing of at-risk relatives. However, testing of healthy individuals also raise important issues regarding informed consent, confidentiality and potential for adverse psychological, social and economic effects.”

Frederick Pei Li (1940–2015) American physician

Frederick Li - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/frederick-li/.

Chris Hedges photo

“Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

What Every Person Should Know About War

Bill Clinton photo
Charles Barron photo

“[Whites] still own 80 to 90 percent of the land. That’s why they like Mandela. That’s why they like Bishop Tutu. They let the whites keep the land.”

Charles Barron (1950) American politician

Talking about Bishop Tutu, and Nelson Mandela. http://observer.com/2008/06/barron-praises-robert-mugabe-for-doing-what-mandela-and-tutu-wouldnt/

Kaoru Ishikawa photo
Francis Escudero photo
Scott Ritter photo

“But the investors who really follow the market, the ones who call up all the time, ninety percent of them really don't care whether they make money or not.”

George Goodman (1930–2014) American author and economics commentator

Source: The Money Game (1968), Chapter 5, You Mean That's What Money Really Is?, p. 53

Milton Friedman photo

“Thanks to economists, all of us, from the days of Adam Smith and before right down to the present, tariffs are perhaps one tenth of one percent lower than they otherwise would have been. … And because of our efforts, we have earned our salaries ten-thousand fold.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Speaking at a meeting of the American Economic Association, as quoted by Walter Block in "Milton Friedman RIP" in Mises Daily (16 November 2006) http://mises.org/story/2393

Carl Rowan photo

“probably 95 percent of ‘white’ Americans have some ‘Negroid blood.”

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American journalist

Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?", "The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-up Call" (1996)

“During the 1980's, the top statutory marginal income tax rate in the United States fell from 70 percent to 28 percent.”

Harvey S. Rosen (1949) American economist

Source: Public Finance - International Edition - Sixth Edition, Chapter 16, Personal Taxation and Behavior, p. 373

Rush Limbaugh photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Michael Johns photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Bert McCracken photo
Matthew Hayden photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Steven M. Greer photo
Orson Welles photo
Miklós Horthy photo
A. J. Muste photo
Jonathan Franzen photo
Cecil Rhodes photo

“Pure philanthropy is very well in its way but philanthropy plus five percent is a good deal better.”

Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa

Attributed by J. C. Johari, Voices of Indian Freedom Movement (1993), Anmol Publications, ISBN 9788171582259, p. 207
Attributed

“So we got fifty percent. Babe Ruth didn't do no better. — Did you mean hittin' it… or throwin' it?”

Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American cartoonist

The three bats (Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred)
Pogo comic strip (1948 - 1975), Others

Bill Bryson photo
Matthieu Ricard photo
Rachel Marsden photo

“Fifty percent of people want to sleep with me, and the other 50 percent want to kill me.”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

cited in Fox's Ann Coulter 2.0 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/29/marsden/index.html. Salon.com.

Roger Ailes photo
David Orrell photo
Shane Claiborne photo
Will Eisner photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Geert Wilders photo
Lawrence H. Summers photo

“No free country will ever again have anything like the 90 percent tax rates that we had in this country. Past a certain point, high marginal tax rates are, indeed, terribly destructive.”

Lawrence H. Summers (1954) Former US Secretary of the Treasury

David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal (April 5, 1998) "Rich now pay more in taxes", Mobile Register, p. F1.
1990s

Mitch Fatel photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“The world has an offer for everybody but it turned out that a few minorities--the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia--they took possession of the riches of the world, a minority took possession of the planet’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the water, the good lands, the oil, and they have concentrated all the riches in the hands of a few; less than 10 percent of the world population owns more than half of the riches of the world.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Chavez is invoking a Christian metaphor to condemn capitalism in this Christmas address, December 24, 2005, which some commentators have taken to be a reference to the Jews. http://www.gobiernoenlinea.gob.ve/docMgr/sharedfiles/Chavez_visita_Centro_Manantial_de_los_suenos24122005.pdf http://bostonreview.net/BR34.4/lomnitz_sanchez.php http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/editing-chavez-to-manufacture-a-slur/
2005

Michael Savage photo
Mitt Romney photo
Peter D. Schiff photo
Fiona Apple photo

“Interviewer: I read a post on the Internet from a young girl who had been victimized by someone and her position was like, "I can talk about this now because Fiona Apple can talk about what happened to her." Do you look at yourself as a role model for women and girls who've had this experience?
Fiona: That's the only reason I ever brought the whole rape thing up. It's a terrible thing, but it happens to so many people. I mean, 80 percent of the people I've told have said right back to me, "That happened to me too." It's so common, and so ridiculous that it's a hard thing to talk about. It angers me so much because something like that happens to you and you carry it around for the rest of your life. No matter how much therapy you go through, no matter how much healing you go through, it's part of you. I just feel that it's such a tragedy that so many people have to bear the extra burden of having to keep it secret from everyone else. As if it's too icky a subject to burden other people with and everyone's going to think you're a victim forever. Then you've labeled yourself a victim, and you've been taken advantage of, and you're ruined, and you're soiled, and you're not pure, you know.If I'm in a position where people are looking up to me in any way, then it's absolutely my responsibility to be open and honest about this, because if I'm not, what does that say to people? It doesn't change a person -- well, it does change a person but it doesn't take anything away from you. It can only strengthen you. It has made me so angry in the past. Like I wanted to say it to somebody. I really wanted somebody to connect with, somebody to understand me, somebody to comfort me. But I felt like I couldn't say anything about because it was taboo to talk about.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Nuvo, "Fiona Apple: The NUVO Interview" April [1997]

George W. Bush photo

“I care what 51 percent of the people think about me.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

On the Oprah Winfrey Show http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0009/19/ip.00.html (20 September 2000).
2000s, 2000

Paul Manafort photo

“Every time the cycle is stopped, some 200 tons of coal are lost. So close is the task interdependence that the system becomes vulnerable from its need for 100 percent performance at each step.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

Source: "Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Long Wall Method of Coal-Getting", 1951, p. 18

Herman Kahn photo
Daniel Hannan photo
Ward Churchill photo
Rachel Marsden photo
Susan Cain photo

“Persistence isn’t very glamorous. If genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the 1 percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other 99 percent.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Hughey, Aaron W. (book reviewer), "Book review: ‘Quiet’ suggests introverts are undervalued by society," The Daily News (Kentucky; BGDailyNews.com), July 15, 2012.

Johan Norberg photo
George W. Bush photo

“I'm asking Congress to pass my Zero Down Payment Initiative. We should remove the 3 percent down payment rule for first time home buyers with FHA-insured mortgages.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks to the National Association of Home Builders, Columbus, Ohio, October 2, 2004 http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041002-7.html
2000s, 2004

Helmut Schmidt photo

“It seems to me that the German people can - pointedly - tolerate 5 percent price increase better than 5 percent unemployment.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

Interview with Helmut Schmidt on the 27. July 1972 in Bonn, partly printed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 28. July 1972 (nr. 171), p. 8

Lil Wayne photo
Jim Yong Kim photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Vin Scully photo

“And, (relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley) walked (pinch-hitter Mike Davis) … and look who's comin' up!
(36 seconds of crowd cheering)
All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight—with two bad legs: the bad left hamstring, and the swollen right knee. And, with two out, you talk about a roll of the dice … this is it. If he hits the ball on the ground, I would imagine he would be running 50 percent to first base. So, the Dodgers trying to catch lightning right now!
Fouled away.
He was, you know, complaining about the fact that, with the left knee bothering him, he can't push off. Well, now, he can't push off and he can't land. … 4-3 A's, two out, ninth inning, not a bad opening act!
Mike Davis, by the way, has stolen 7 out of 10, if you're wondering about Lasorda throwing the dice again. 0-and-1.
Fouled away again. … 0-and-2 to Gibson, the infield is back, with two out and Davis at first. Now Gibson, during the year, not necessarily in this spot, but he was a threat to bunt. No way tonight, no wheels.
No balls, two strikes, two out.
Little nubber … foul—and, it had to be an effort to run that far. Gibson was so banged up, he was not introduced; he did not come out onto the field before the game. … It's one thing to favor one leg, but you can't favor two. 0-and-2 to Gibson.
Ball one. And, a throw down to first, Davis just did get back. Good play by Ron Hassey using Gibson as a screen; he took a shot at the runner, and Mike Davis didn't see it for that split-second and that made it close.
There goes Davis, and it's fouled away! So, Mike Davis, who had stolen 7 out of 10, and carrying the tying run, was on the move.
Gibson, shaking his left leg, making it quiver, like a horse trying to get rid of a troublesome fly. 2-and-2! … Tony LaRussa is one out away from win number one. … two balls and two strikes, with two out.
There he goes! Wa-a-ay outside, he's stolen it! … So, Mike Davis, the tying run, is at second base with two out. Now, the Dodgers don't need the muscle of Gibson, as much as a base hit, and on deck is the lead-off man, Steve Sax. 3-and-2. Sax waiting on deck, but the game right now is at the plate.
High fly ball into right field, she i-i-i-is gone!!
(67 seconds of cheering and organ music)
In a year that has been so improbable … the impossible has happened!
And, now, the only question was, could he make it around the base paths unassisted?!
You know, I said it once before, a few days ago, that Kirk Gibson was not the Most Valuable Player; that the Most Valuable Player for the Dodgers was Tinkerbell. But, tonight, I think Tinkerbell backed off for Kirk Gibson. And, look at Eckersley—shocked to his toes!
They are going wild at Dodger Stadium—no one wants to leave!”

Vin Scully (1927) American sports broadcaster

Kirk Gibson's World Series-game-winning home run, October 15, 1988, transcribed from mlb.com archives <nowiki>[</nowiki>excising comments by color commentator Joe Garagiola]