Frederick Mosteller > Quotes

“It is easy to lie with statistics; it is easier to lie without them.”
― Frederick Mosteller

“While it is easy to lie with statistics, it is even easier to lie without them.”
― Frederick Mosteller

“Much of what I have learned, as well as much of my intellectual enjoyment, has come through problem solving. Through the years, I've found it more and more difficult to tell when I was working and when playing, for it has so often turned out that what I have learned playing with problems has been useful in my serious work.”
― Frederick Mosteller, Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions

“Although we often hear that data speak for themselves, their voices can be soft and sly.”
― Frederick Mosteller, Beginning Statistics with Data Analysis

“The Skeptic's mistake lies in thinking that we should tie our hands behind our backs just because we will not be able to reach rock-hard conclusions.”
― Frederick Mosteller

“In a problem, the great thing is the challenge. A problem can be challenging for many reasons: because the subject matter is intriguing, because the answer defies unsophisticated intuition, because it illustrates an important principle, because of its vast generality, because of its difficulty, because of a clever solution, or even because of the simplicity or beauty of the answer.”
― Frederick Mosteller, Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions