19th-century Statistician Quotes

Francis Galton
Ronald Fisher
Wesley Clair Mitchell
Udny Yule

Although no explanation can be expected to be satisfactory, it remains a possibility among others that Mendel was deceived by some assistant who knew too well what was expected. This possibility is supported by independent evidence that the data of most, if not all, of the experiments have been falsified so as to agree closely with Mendel's expectations.

Ronald Fisher
Ronald Fisher
The process of evolution on this earth, so far as we can judge, has been carried out neither with intelligence nor truth, but entirely through the routine of various sequences, commonly called "laws," established or necessitated we know not how.

Francis Galton
Francis Galton
The most notable difference (of the American character) lies in the psychology of work. In the Orient one works to live; in Europe one works to consume; in America one works to work. These are the three stages of a progressive evolution.

Italy is, after France and perhaps in the same degree, the land in which love of country has the deepest roots in the hearts of its inhabitants. The fact is that perhaps nowhere else has nature been so prodigal with its enchantments and seductions. Therefore, although Italy has been, since the fall of the Caesars, the object of European covetousness, the eternal battlefield of powerful neighbors, and the theatre of the fiercest and most prolonged civil wars, her children have always refused to leave her. Save for some commercial colonies hastily thrown upon the shores of Asia by Genoa and Venice, history has not, in fact, recorded in Italy any important outward movement of population.

Since the statistician can seldom or never make experiments for himself, he has to accept the data of daily experiences, and discuss as best he can the relations of a whole group of changes.

Udny Yule
Udny Yule
Archaeologists unearthed today in Babylon a remarkable set of clay tablets recording the minutes of the 1242 annual meeting of the Babylonical Statistical Association.

Great numbers and the averages resulting from them, such as we always obtain in measuring social phenomena, have great inertia.

A statistician is usually either right or wrong.

Wesley Clair Mitchell
Wesley Clair Mitchell
You complain that your report would be dry. The dryer the better. Statistics should be the driest of all reading.