Quotes
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and
the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell
In the end, we will not hear the words of our enemies, but
the silence of our friends - Martin Luther King Jr.
Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
--Elie Wiesel, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.
--Attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi
Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed -- Steve Biko
It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labours of peace.- Andre Gide
War is exciting for those who have no experience of it - Erasmus
There is no greater sign of a general
decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants
for the good of their country - Joseph Addison
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results." - Winston Churchill
I’d prefer to be right than consistent. --- Winston Churchill
Don't sacrifice what you wish for most for what you wish for now --- Curtis Martin (NFL running back)
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes
ours, wherever they might have their origin. Let me feel with
unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine - Rabindranath Tagore
You got to love to be able to play - Louis Armstrong
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to
please everybody. - Bill Cosby
All you need is a little courage... - Charlie Chaplin in "Limelight"
Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you - Jean-Paul Sartre
I passionately hate the idea of being with it,
I think an artist has always to be out of step
with his time.
Orson Welles
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. - Jonathan Swift
The only people who become disillusioned are people who have illusions. -Saul Alinsky
Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without
losing your temper or your self-confidence. -Robert Frost
Barbara Tuchman's advice concerning research: "One must stop before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish."
All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike-and yet it is the most precious thing we have.- Albert Einstein
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. -Mark Twain
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness -- Mark Twain.
You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? --- Mr.Welch's rhetorical question to Senator J.McCarthy at the McCarthy hearings.
Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that. -Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire
Don’t cry over things that can’t cry over you. --- M.Dowd, who attributed it to her mother (the quote was in the context of teaching her daughter that materialism and narcissism can only smother life.)
Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own. --- Bruce Lee
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. -Thoreau
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- G.B.Shaw
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.-- G.B.Shaw
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.-- Mark Twain
Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve-- G.B.Shaw
We shall not cease from exploration And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started And know it for the first time - T.S.Elliot
In the long run, we are all dead - M.Keynes (Corollary: In the short run, we have to eat.)
Without assumptions there can be no conclusions - John Tukey
The best thing about being a statistician,'' John Tukey once told a colleague, ``is that you get to play in everyone's backyard.''
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise. John Tukey
"If we torture data long enough, it will confess "--- (in the
context of multiple testing/data snooping issues) an unattributed
quote in Olofsson's book on Probability, Statistics and Stochastic
Processes.
Quotes (include some remarkably pessimistic/cynical ones!) by Alfred Nobel
- "Contentment is the only real wealth"
- "Justice is to be found only in the imagination"
- "The truthful man is usuall defeated by the liar"
- "Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness"
All models are wrong, but some are useful - George Box (My favorite quote by a statistician, though it applies much more generally.)