Statistics Quotes

Work, finish, publish.

But to us, probability is the very guide of life.

A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time.

In science, each new point of view calls forth a revolution in nomenclature.

That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Stories are more than compelling facts. People remember stories more than they remember statistics.

Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.

The only useful function of a statistician is to make predictions, and thus to provide a basis for action.

When I write a paper, I change my notation much more than I change my concepts.

That's the trouble with languages. They have to be learned.

Awards mean a lot, but they don't say it all. The people in baseball mean more to me than statistics.

The Wall will stand for a hundred years.

No matter what the statistics say there is always a way.

Rotten wood cannot be carved.

Statistically speaking, there is a 65 percent chance that the love of your life is having an affair. Be very suspicious.

It's not what happened but how it is told.

Even theories must have foundations.

We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.

Its important not to focus so much on the statistics, but [on people's] perceptions.

To remember simplified pictures is better than to forget accurate figures.

For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.

Formatting is no substitute for writing.

In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies.

It has long been recognized by public men of all kinds. . . that statistics come under the head of lying, and that no lie is so false or inconclusive as that which is based on statistics.

The older I get, the more I believe that at the bottom of most deep mathematical problems there is a combinatorial problem.

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.

The world is continuous, but the mind is discrete.

To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

It is easy to lie with statistics; it is easier to lie without them.

God created infinity, and man, unable to understand infinity, had to invent finite sets.

Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

I learned many years ago never to waste time trying to convince my colleagues.

And if California slides into the ocean, as the mystics and statistics say it will, I predict this hotel will be standing until I've paid my bill.

How much of what we call 'reality' is actually out there or rather within our own head?

As I look back on it now, it's obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics.

Between grief and nothing, I will take grief.

If I were sitting down with George Steinbrenner (to discuss a salary) and based on what Dave Winfield got for his statistics, I'd have to say, 'George, you and I are about to become partners.'

I didn't have statistics in my mind when I was racing. It was always a consequence - a nice consequence. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't the reason I was racing.

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

Just think of all the billions of coincidences that don't happen.

Isn't it strange how much we know if only we ask ourselves instead of somebody else.

When a coincidence seems amazing, that's because the human mind isn’t wired to naturally comprehend probability & statistics.

All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.

The church has paid a terrible price for statistics!

Man must learn to simplify, but not to the point of falsification.

it is only in statistics that people die by the millions. Each person dies individually, in his own predicament.