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Darrell Huff Quotes

The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical terms and statistical methods are necessary in reporting the mass

The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical terms and statistical methods are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, 'opinion' polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense.

Darrell Huff
Honesty, Mean, Data

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

Darrell Huff
Lying, Bigs, Wells
How to Lie with Statistics (p. 9)

Don't be a novelist --- be a statistician. Much more scope for the imagination.

Darrell Huff
Imagination, Novelists, Scope

Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, a cold will hang on for a week.

Darrell Huff
Seven Days, Cold, Week
Darrell Huff (2010). “How to Lie with Statistics”, p.10, W. W. Norton & Company

A difference is a difference only if it makes a difference.

Darrell Huff
Differences, Making A Difference, Ifs
Darrell Huff (2010). “How to Lie with Statistics”, p.60, W. W. Norton & Company

It is dangerous to mention any subject having high emotional content without hastily saying where you are for or agin it.

Darrell Huff
Emotional, Where You Are, Dangerous
Darrell Huff (1993). “How to Lie with Statistics”, p.48, W. W. Norton & Company

The purely random sample is the only kind that can be examined with confidence by means of statistical theory, but there is one things wrong with it. It is so difficult and expensive to obtain for many uses that sheer cost eliminates it. A more economical substitute, which is almost universally used in such fields as opinion polling and market research, is called stratified random sampling.

Darrell Huff
Mean, Cost, Use
Darrell Huff (2010). “How to Lie with Statistics”, p.23, W. W. Norton & Company

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