All models are wrong, but some are useful — Statistics

"To consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him to conduct a post mortem examination. He can perhaps say what the experiment died of."

"In our private life as in our collective life there is no other truth than a statistical one."

"Each of us has been doing statistics all his life, in the sense that each of us has been busily reaching conclusions based on empirical observations."

"The rise of biometry in this 20th century, like that of geometry in the 3rd century before Christ, seems to mark out one of the great ages or critical periods in the advance of the human understanding."

"A well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitlers "big lie"; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you."

"Statistics is a body of methods for making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty"