A Dictionary Of Quotations - ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS

Allen, R.G.D. Statistics for Economists
Chapter I (p. 14)
 

The technical analysis of any large collection of data is a task for a highly trained and expensive man who knows the mathematical theory of statistics inside and out. Otherwise the outcome is likely to be a collection of drawings-quartered pies, cute little battleships, and tapering rows of sturdy soldiers in diversified uniforms-interesting enough in a colored Sunday supplement, but hardly the sort of thing from which to draw reliable inferences. 

Bell, Eric T.
Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science (p. 383)
 

He was in Logick, a great Critick, Profoundly skill'd in Analytick;
He could distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and south-west side. Butler, Samuel

Hudibras
Part I, Canto I, 1. 65
 

The repetition of a catchword can hold analysis in fetters for f&y years
and more.
Cardozo, Benjamin N.
Harvard Law Review
Mr. Justice Holmes
Volume 44, Number 5, March 1931 (p. 689)

Murphy’s Laws of Analysis. (1) In any collection of data, the figures that are obviously correct contain errors.  (2) It is customary for a decimal to be misplaced. (3) An error that can creep into a calculation, will. Also, it will always be in the direction that will cause the most damage to the calculation.

Deakly, G.C.
Quoted in Paul Dickson’s
The Official Rules (M-126)
 

The mere fact of naming an object tends to give definiteness to our conception of it-we have then a sign that at once calls up in our minds the distinctive qualities which mark out for us that particular object from all others.
 

Eliot, George
The George Eliot Letters 

Volume I1 (p. 251)

It is not the first use but the tiresome repetition of inadequate catchwords which I am observing-phrases which originally were contributions, but which, by their very felicity, delay further analysis for fifty years.
 

Holmes, O.W., Jr.
Collected Legal Papers (pp. 230-1)
 

I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may
be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. . .
 

Holmes, Sherlock

in Arthur Conan Doyle’s
 

The Complete Sherluck Holmes
The Man with the Twisted Lip
. . . be wary of analysts that try to quantify the unquantifiable.
Keeney, Ralph
Raiffa, Howard
 

Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Trade-offs (p. 12)
But to argue, without analysis of the instances, from the mere fact that
a given event has a frequency of 10 percent in the thousand instances
under observation, or even in a million instances, that . . . it is likely to
have a frequency near to 1/10 in a further set of observations, is . . .
hardly an argument at all.

A Dictionary Of Quotations - ACTUARY

ACTUARY

Karpansky, L.

High School Education

Someone once asked an accountant, a mathematician, an engineer, a
statistician and an actuary how much 2 plus 2 was. The accountant
said "4". The mathematician said "It all depends on your number base."
The engineer took out his slide-rule and said "approximately 3.99". The
statistician consulted his tables and said, "I am 95% confident that it lies
between 3.95 and 4.05." The actuary said "What do you want it to add  up to?" 

Unknown

Actuaries are funny people. Even when they are wrong, they are right.
I told an actuary to go to the back of the queue. He immediately came
back and said that he couldn't-there was already someone there.
 

Unknown

 

An insurance company is like an automobile going down the road at high
speed. The managing director has his hands on the wheel, the marketing
director has his foot on the accelerator. The finance director is heaving
with all his might on the hand-brake and the actuary is in the back
screaming directions from a map he has just made by looking out of the
rear window. 

Unknown