Citation du jeudi 09.04.2015 – Mensonges et statistiques selon Graham McNeill
Il y a trois sortes de mensonges: les petits mensonges, les gros mensonges et les statistiques.
[ Graham McNeill ]
Déluge d’Acier (2006)
Adage prêté par Mark Twain à Benjamin Disraëli : Il y a trois sortes de mensonges: les petits mensonges, les gros mensonges et les statistiques [ Chapters from My Autobiography, published in the North American Review in 1906. ]
Leonard Henry Courtney :
Essay in The National Review (London, 1895) (PDF document online)
What a jolly awakening there will be some few years hence, when the inevitable argument of experience will show us a nation contradicting itself through the voices of its chosen representatives! The stupidest politician will sit up, rubbing his eyes. After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, « Lies — damned lies — and statistics, » still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of. So we may be led to the serious consideration of change by the evolution of materials of conviction which those who run may read, though some who read may wish to run away from them.