Statistics Quotes - Page 14

• Although to penetrate into the intimate mysteries of nature and thence to learn the true causes of phenomena is not allowed to us, nevertheless it can happen that a certain fictive hypothesis may suffice for explaining many phenomena.

  Leonhard Euler

  Science, May, Causes

  Leonhard Euler (1955). “Commentationes mechanicae ad theoriam corporum fluidorum pertinentes 2nd part”, p.80, Springer Science & Business Media

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• A formal manipulator in mathematics often experiences the discomforting feeling that his pencil surpasses him in intelligence.

  Howard Whitley Eves

  Math, Feelings, Intelligence

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• I spent twenty-two seasons playing professional baseball. Naturally, success in that field is measured by batting averages, number of home runs and RBIs, fielding averages, ERAs and other statistics. Fame, notoriety and the bright lights fade quickly. To me, true success in life would be to develop both physically and spiritually to our fullest and to endure to the end!

  Harmon Killebrew

  Life, Success, Baseball

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• Most human problems can be solved by an appropriate charge of high explosive.

  Joe Gayton

  Problem, Humans, Appropriate

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• The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.

  Bill Gates

  Numbers, Would Be, Development

  Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Rinearson (1996). “The Road Ahead”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

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• The Universe is a grand book which cannot be read until one first learns to comprehend the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics.

  Galileo Galilei

  Education, Book, Character

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• This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety ... While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals.

  Ronald Reagan

  Gun, Assault Weapons, Dry Up

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• The same set of statistics can produce opposite conclusions at different levels of aggregation.

  Thomas Sowell

  Science, Opposites, Different

  Thomas Sowell (1995). “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy”, p.102, Basic Books

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• They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like a pain of an amputated leg no longer there.

  Graham Greene

  Pain, Memories, Men

  Graham Greene (1970). “The Collected Edition: Our man in Havana”

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• I'm not resigned, but I'm realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Cancer, Long, People

  "Anderson Cooper 360°", transcripts.cnn.com. August 5, 2010.

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• A little uncertainty is good for everyone.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Littles, Uncertainty

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• Algebras (jabbre and maqabeleh) are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.

  Omar Khayyam

  Facts, Algebra, Geometric

  As quoted in "A Paper of Omar Khayyam" by A.R. Amir-Moez in "Scripta Mathematica", 26, 1963.

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• It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between the truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Truth, Math, Degrees

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “A Treatise on Probability”, p.322, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Trivia rarely affect efficiency. Are all the machinations worth it, when their primary effect is to make the code less readable?

  Brian Kernighan

  Trivia, Efficiency, Code

  Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger (1978). “The Elements of Programming Style”, Computing McGraw-Hill

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• Statistics is the branch of scientific method which deals with the data obtained by counting or measuring the properties of populations of natural phenomena.

  Maurice Kendall

  Data, Population, Branches

  Maurice George Kendall, Alan Stuart (1977). “The Advanced Theory of Statistics: Distribution theory”, Hafner Press

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• If they would only do as he did and publish posthumously we should all be saved a lot of trouble.

  Maurice Kendall

  Trouble, Should, Saved

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• Now I feel as if I should succeed in doing something in mathematics, although I cannot see why it is so very important. . . The knowledge doesn't make life any sweeter or happier, does it?

  Helen Keller

  Life, Knowledge, Math

  Helen Keller (2016). “The Story of My Life”, p.146, Om Books International

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• In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently.

  Alan Kay

  Computer, Program, Explosions

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• It's against my programming to impersonate a deity.

  Lawrence Kasdan

  Deities, Programming, Impersonate

  Lawrence Kasdan, George Lucas (1994). “Star Wars: The Screenplay. Return of the Jedi”

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• Of course, the entire effort is to put myself Outside the ordinary range Of what are called statistics. A hundred are killed In the outer suburbs. Well, well, I carry on.

  Stephen Spender

  Effort, Ordinary, Hundred

  Stephen Spender (2015). “New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender”, p.151, Faber & Faber

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• In our day, computer technology and the proliferation of books on CD-ROM have not affected - as far as statistics show - the production and sale of books in their old-fashioned codex form.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Technology, Cds

  "A History of Reading". Book by Alberto Manguel, 1996.

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• Laws, it is said, are for the protection of the people. It's unfortunate that there are no statistics on the number of lives that are clobbered yearly as a result of laws: outmoded laws; laws that found their way onto the books as a result of ignorance, hysteria or political haymaking; antilife laws; biased laws; laws that pretend that reality is fixed and nature is definable; laws that deny people the right to refuse protection. A survey such as that could keep a dozen dull sociologists out of mischief for months.

  Tom Robbins

  Book, Ignorance, Reality

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• The statistician cannot excuse himself from the duty of getting his head clear on the principles of scientific inference, but equally no other thinking man can avoid a like obligation.

  Ronald Fisher

  Science, Men, Thinking

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

  Otto Neurath

  Science, Remember, Forget

  Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath, Robert Sonné Cohen (1973). “Empiricism and sociology”

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• You can always create a fraction by putting one variable upstairs and another variable downstairs, but that soes not establish any causal relationship between them, nor does the resulting quotient have any necessary relationship to anything in the real world.

  Thomas Sowell

  Real, Science, Doe

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