Normal Distribution Quotes

Beware of averages. The average person has one breast and one testicle.

If you hear a "prominent" economist using the word 'equilibrium,' or 'normal distribution,' do not argue with him; just ignore him, or try to put a rat down his shirt.

We all know that players will hit a few more home runs than usual in some years and a few less in others. But the mathematics of chance also predicts that some years they'll hit a lot more, and some years a lot less.

The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions.

One of the laws of nature," Gordon said, "is that half the people have got to be below average.""For a Gaussian distribution, yeah," Cooper said. "Sad, though.

And knowing what happens on average is a good place to start. By so doing, we insulate ourselves from the tendency to build our thinking - our daily decisions, our laws, our governance - on exceptions and anomalies rather than on reality

Most people are average. Founders are not. Founders' traits seem to have an inverse normal distribution to them.

Averages are useful because many traits, behaviors, and outcomes are distributed in a bell-shaped curve, with most results clustered around the middle and a much smaller group of outliers at the high and low ends.

[On the Gaussian curve, remarked to Poincaré:] Experimentalists think that it is a mathematical theorem while the mathematicians believe it to be an experimental fact.

Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.

By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

Remember, half the people you know are below average.

I'm interested in the left side of the Bell Curve.

The world is a bell curve. Classroom test scores, employee performance in a company or how many people really, really like you. No matter the population you're studying, they always fit neatly across the standard deviations of the famous bell curve.

I go into every meeting, into every room and for every speech understanding the standard deviation, the Bell Curve. I know there are about 10-15 percent of people in the room, who say, "I've been trying to say this for years. Finally. I agree. Yes, yes, yes." I know there are about 15 percent of the people in the room who think I'm an idiot, who think I don't know what I'm talking about, who think I'm naive or I have oversimplified everything. The majority who are open to the ideal.

Regression toward the mean. That is, in any series of random events an extraordinary event is most likely to be followed, due purely to chance, by a more ordinary one.

Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.