Friday, February 11, 2005
Lies, damned lies....
It must be a day for trivia. I have just discovered that all this time I have been attributing one of my favourite quotes incorrectly. The quote: "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics."
I have seen it attributed variously to Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli. In fact, it comes from Leonard Henry Courtney, who used it in an 1895 article in The National Review [London].
On the subject of quotes in similar vein, I like this one, seen this week: "The plural of anecdote is not data."
It must be a day for trivia. I have just discovered that all this time I have been attributing one of my favourite quotes incorrectly. The quote: "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics."
I have seen it attributed variously to Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli. In fact, it comes from Leonard Henry Courtney, who used it in an 1895 article in The National Review [London].
On the subject of quotes in similar vein, I like this one, seen this week: "The plural of anecdote is not data."
