Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach Quotes
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Ebner-Eschenbach, Marie von. Aphorismen. Franz Ebhardt, 1880.
There is a great tendency in politics and government operations to get extremely precise numbers because political opponents will always attack all numbers that do not support their positions. The result is that typically, so much time and money goes into trying to get precision, that by the time the numbers are good enough the opportunity to make the right policy decision will have passed. Much information that bears on an issue is never used because it is not precise enough while the precise information is not particularly relevant. See {619763} for a similar related quote.
Countess Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach was an Austrian writer. Noted for her psychological novels, she is regarded as one of the most important German-language writers of the latter portion of the 19th century.