24 Quotes by John Tukey

The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard.

It’s better to solve the right problem approximately than to solve the wrong problem exactly.

All we know about the world teaches us that the effects of A and B are always different-in some decimal place-for any A and B. Thus asking “are the effects different?” is foolish.

Visualization is often used for evil – twisting insignificant data changes and making them look meaningful. Don’t do that crap if you want to be my friend. Present results clearly and honestly. If something isn’t working – those reviewing results need to know.

An approximate answer to the right question is worth far more than a precise answer to the wrong one.

In rating ease of description as very important, we are essentially asserting a belief in quantitative knowledge - a belief that most of the key questions in our world sooner or later demand answers to 'by how much?' rather than merely to 'in which direction?'