Evan Esar Quotes

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

Statistics are like blood sausage: they are delicious until you find out how they're made.

You can shape statistics to make them look however you want them to.

Statistics do not speak for themselves.

If the statistics are boring, you've got the wrong numbers.

Statistics and numbers are no good unless you have good people to analyse and then interpret their meaning and importance.

[Statistics are] the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

People tend to think that numbers are quite objective, but numbers in economics are not like this. Some economists say they're like sausages: you don't know what they really are until you cut into them.

Definition of a Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits than under analysis some of them won't stand up either.

On average, people should be more skeptical when they see numbers. They should be more willing to play around with the data themselves.

We spend our time bandying statistics about.

People say that it’s easy to lie with statistics. Well it’s a lot easier to lie without them.

It is easy to lie with statistics. It is hard to tell the truth without it.

The numbers don't always tell the whole story.

Statistics are there to be broken.

Data and data sets are not objective; they are creations of human design. We give numbers their voice, draw inferences from them, and define their meaning through our interpretations.

It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. But I am sure that figures show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.

... the actual and physical conduct of an experiment must govern the statistical procedure of its interpretation.

[Statistics] The science that can prove everything except the usefulness of statistics.

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess.

Statistics has been the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death.

If you just look at the data, you are led to believe that things are getting better, rather than worse. That's why the fall is really precipitous, once you hit the ceiling.

Knowledge about limitations of your data collection process affects what inferences you can draw from the data.