25 Powerful Statistics Quotes with the Flavour of Science

I could prove God statistically.
Take the human body alone –
the chances
that all the functions
of an individual
would just happen
is a statistical monstrosity.
George Horace Gallup

(1901 – 1984, American pioneer of survey sampling techniques)

Statistics Quotes: By a small sample, we may judge of the whole piece - Miguel de Cervantes

Collage of Shutterstock images; Foreground: coka, Background: Laszlo Szirtesi

Do not put faith in
what statistics say
until you have carefully considered
what they do not say.
William W. Watt

(1913 – 1996; American teacher, author, and poet)

The only way
to learn mathematics
is to do mathematics.
Paul Halmos

(1916 – 2006; Hungarian-born mathematician)

The manipulation
of statistical formulas
is no substitute for knowing
what one is doing.
Hubert M. Blalock, Jr.

(1926 – 1991; American sociologist)

Those who ignore statistics
are condemned to reinvent it.
Bradley Efron

(*1938, American statistician)

The average human has
one breast and one testicle.
Des MacHale

(*1950; Irish Math Professor Emeritus at University College Cork)

There are two ways of lying.
One, not telling the truth
and the other,
making up statistics.
Josefina Eugenia Vázquez Mota

(*1961, Mexican businesswoman and politician)

You can’t fix by analysis
what you bungled by design.
Richard J. Light, Judith D. Singer, John B. Willett

(from the paper, “Planning Research on Higher Education”)

Data is the sword
of the 21st century,
those who wield it well,
the Samurai.
Jonathan Rosenberg

(former Google Inc. Senior Vice President)

If you think
that statistics
has nothing to say about
what you do
or how you could do it better,
then you are either wrong
or in need of a more interesting job.
Stephen Senn

(Swiss-born economist and statistician)