William Playfair Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

Such is the disposition of men, that we value what is speculative and precarious, more than what is safe and beneficial.

William Playfair
No study is less alluring or more dry and tedious than statistics, unless the mind and imagination are set to work, or that the person studying is particularly interested in the subject; which last can seldom be the case with young men in any rank of life.

William Playfair
Men in general are very slow to enter into what is reckoned a new thing; and there seems to be a very universal as well as great reluctance to undergo the drudgery of acquiring information that seems not to be absolutely necessary.

William Playfair
Information that is imperfectly acquired, is generally as imperfectly retained; and a man who has carefully investigated a printed table, finds, when done, that he has only a very faint and partial idea of what he has read; and that like a figure imprinted on sand, is soon totally erased and defaced.

William Playfair
As to the propriety and justness of representing sums of money, and time, by parts of space, tho' very readily agreed to by most men, yet a few seem to apprehend there may possibly be some deception in it, of which they are not aware...

William Playfair
All those things that make a nation richer, stronger, or more happy; or that tend to exalt national character, but that will not pay individuals, deserve public encouragement.

William Playfair
Statistical knowledge, though in some degree searched after in the most early ages of the world, has not till within these last 50 years become a regular object of study.

William Playfair