Jay Litwyn wrote:
"Durova" nadezhda.durova@gmail.com quoted Samuel Clemens in message news:a01006d90904151712x2e95f41r9c2dcf17a4dcbcef@mail.gmail.com...
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". - Mark Twain
In book called "They never said it!", that is identified as apocryphal, which means that he did not write it (maybe I can find a finer criterion printed in the book). It is a lot of fun to say it, though, so if he said it once, then he probably said it a few times. Einstein said something like it on a sign that hung at his door: " Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted. "
My book of quotes (Chambers Dictionary of Quotations) says Clemens attributed it to D'Israeli, citing as source Mark Twain ''Autobiography, vol.1 (1924). So although Clemens may have said it, he wasn't first, or at least didn't think he was first. And it does have the ring of D'Israeli, regardless of whether D'Israeli ever said it. After writing all that, I turned to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
We really aren't half bad, are we?