“Statistics means never having to say you’re certain” — Anonymous
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“Statistics is the art of never having to say you’re wrong” — Anonymous
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“There are three kinds of liars ... men, women, and statistics” — Anonymous
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“Without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion” — Anonymous
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“Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment” — J Baudrillard
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“No lie is so false or inconclusive as that which is based on statistics” — Hilarie Belloc
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“Before the curse of statistics fell upon mankind we lived a happy, innocent life, full of merriment and go, and informed by fairly good judgment” — Hilarie Belloc
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“No statistic is perfect, but some are less imperfect than others” — Joel Best
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“The manipulation of statistical formulas is no substitute for knowing what one is doing” — Hubert M Blalock Jr
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“If enough data is collected, anything may be proved by statistical methods” — Arthur Bloch
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“Men willingly believe what they wish” — Julius Caesar
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“I can prove anything by statistics except the truth” — George Canning
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“A judicious man uses statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted upon him” — Thomas Carlyle
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“If you want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligible, as long as there is enough of them” — Lewis Carroll
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“Statistics are no substitute for judgment” — Henry Clay
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“Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare” — René Déscartes
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“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” — Benjamin Disraeli (quoted by Mark Twain)
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“Statistics: the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions” — Evan Esar
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“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted” — Albert Einstein
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“Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything” — Gregg Easterbrook
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“We make decisions in the dark of data” — Stu Hunter
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“Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance” — Morris Klein
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“In ancient times they had no statistics, so they had to fall back on lies” — Stephen B Leacock
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“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital” — Aaron Levenstein
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“Statistics will prove anything, even the truth” — Noël Moynihan
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“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers” — Plato
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“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones” — Bertrand Russell
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“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together” — William Shakespeare
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“49% of all statistics are wrong” — Statistics Canada
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“Statistics are like lampposts: they are good to lean on, but they don’t shed much light” — Robert Storm-Petersen
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“Statistics is the art of lying by means of figures” — Wilhelm Stekel
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“There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up” — Rex Stout
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“Ninety percent of everything is crap” — Theodore Sturgeon
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“There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else” — James Thurber
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“Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say” — William W Watt
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“Satan delights equally in statistics and in quoting scripture” — H G Wells
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“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple” — Oscar Wilde
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“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please: facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable” — Mark Twain
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