QuoteProject
There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Mark Twain
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes the manipulation of information and how statistics can be skewed to mislead people.

Mark Twain's quote highlights the dangerous potential of statistics to deceive. While numbers and statistics are often seen as objective truths, they can be selectively presented or interpreted in such a way that distorts reality. Twain suggests that not only can lies exist, but the misleading nature of statistics can be even more pervasive, ultimately influencing opinions and decisions based on false premises.

Themes

LiesStatisticsDeceptionTruthMisleading

In practice

Example use cases

In a debate about data manipulation, one might quote Twain to illustrate their point.

More from Mark Twain

Weather is a literary specialty, and no untrained hand can turn out a good article on it
Mark TwainRead
The easy part of being an artist is figuring out the message that everyone else is ready to hear. The hard part is waiting for the proper lull to make the announcement.
Mark TwainRead
You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.
Mark TwainRead
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
Mark TwainRead
Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.
Mark TwainRead
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark TwainRead

Similar quotes

So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations, that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about whom the public is to hate. Guilt and guilelessness must be assessed geographically and all the guilt must be on the other side of the frontier.
Harold LasswellRead
A Christian who withdraws into himself, hiding all that the Lord has given him, is not a Christian! I would ask the many young people present to be generous with their God-given talents for the good of others, the Church and our world.
Pope FrancisRead
I don't believe what the papers are saying They're just out to capture my dime, Exaggerating this, exaggerating that.
Paul SimonRead
Sinners in their natural state lie dead, lifeless, and moveless; they can no more believe in Christ, nor repent, than a dead man can speak or walk: but, in virtue of the promise, the Spirit of life from Christ Jesus, at the time appointed, enters into the dead soul, and quickens it; so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, that were lost by Adam's fall.
Thomas BostonRead
The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.
David HumeRead
Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.
DemocritusRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.