While nothing is more uncertain than the duration of a single life, nothing is more certain than the average duration of a thousand lives. A quote of American actuary and abolitionist Elizur Wright (1804 - 1885).
One sees in this essay that the theory of probabilities is basically only common sense reduced to a calculus. This quote of French astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749 - 1827) may be found in "A philosophical Essay on Probabilities" (Springer, 1995) p. 124 English translation of "Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilites (1814)"
A statistician's wife had twins. He was delighted. He rang the minister who was also delighted. "Bring them to church on Sunday and we'll baptize them," said the minister. "No," replied the statistician. "Baptize one. We'll keep the other as a control." This is joke number 30 on Gary Ramseyer's First Internet Gallery of Statistics Jokes at http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html
USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. Quote from comedian and late night talk show host David Letterman (1947 - ).
I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. A quote of soldier and U.S. cartoonist William H. Mauldin (1921 - 2003) from a cartoon caption in the first published collection of his work, "Up Front" (H. Holt and Co., 1945)
A knowledge of statistics is like a knowledge of foreign languages or of algebra; it may prove of use at any time under any circumstances. Quote from "Elements of Statistics" by English statistician, economist and early proponent of using statistics in the social sciences, Sir Arthur Lyon Bowley (1869 - 1957).
Life is a school of probability. A quote attributed to English journalist and longtime editor of "The Economist" newspaper, Walter Bagehot (1826 - 1877). The quote is found in "The World of Mathematics", J.R. Newman (ed.); Simon and Schuster, 1956 p. 1360.
Statistics play an important role in genetics. For instance, statistics prove that the number of offspring you will have is an inherited trait. If your parents didn't have any kids, odds are you won't either. Joke #137 of Gary Ramseyer's "First Internet Gallery of Statistics Jokes" contributed by Hugh W. Graham of Abbott Labs.
What do you call a tea party with more than 30 people? A Z party! This is joke #123 on http://www.ilstu.edu/~gcramsey/Gallery.html Gary Ramseyer's First Internet Gallery of Statistics Jokes and is attributed by the gallery to Stacey Ecott.
