TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index M > Michael J. Moroney Quotes

Michael J. Moroney
(1918 - 1990)

English statistician who is most widely remembered because of his book, Facts From Figures (1951), which not only became an immediate best-seller, but was revised, had many reprints, and was translated into nine languages. He joined Unilever in 1954, and improved statistical methods throughout the far-flung empire of companies.

Science Quotes by Michael J. Moroney (7 quotes)

A statistical analysis, properly conducted, is a delicate dissection of uncertainties, a surgery of suppositions.
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts from Figures (1951), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Conduct (70)  |  Delicate (45)  |  Dissection (35)  |  Proper (150)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Supposition (50)  |  Surgery (54)  |  Uncertainty (58)

For the most part, statistics is a method of investigation that is used when other methods are of no avail; it is often a last resort and a forlorn hope.
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts from Figures (1951), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Forlorn (5)  |  Hope (321)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Last (425)  |  Method (531)  |  Most (1728)  |  Other (2233)  |  Resort (8)  |  Statistics (170)

Historically, Statistics is no more than State Arithmetic, a system of computation by which differences between individuals are eliminated by the taking of an average. It has been used—indeed, still is used—to enable rulers to know just how far they may safely go in picking the pockets of their subjects.
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts from Figures (1951), 1.
Science quotes on:  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Average (89)  |  Computation (28)  |  Difference (355)  |  Eliminate (25)  |  Enable (122)  |  History (716)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Individual (420)  |  Know (1538)  |  More (2558)  |  Picking (2)  |  Pocket (11)  |  Ruler (21)  |  State (505)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Still (614)  |  Subject (543)  |  System (545)

If you are young, then I say: Learn something about statistics as soon as you can. Don’t dismiss it through ignorance or because it calls for thought. … If you are older and already crowned with the laurels of success, see to it that those under your wing who look to you for advice are encouraged to look into this subject. In this way you will show that your arteries are not yet hardened, and you will be able to reap the benefits without doing overmuch work yourself. Whoever you are, if your work calls for the interpretation of data, you may be able to do without statistics, but you won’t do as well.
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts from Figures (1951), 463.
Science quotes on:  |  Advice (57)  |  Already (226)  |  Artery (10)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Call (781)  |  Crown (39)  |  Data (162)  |  Dismiss (12)  |  Do (1905)  |  Doing (277)  |  Encourage (43)  |  Hardened (2)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Interpretation (89)  |  Laurel (2)  |  Learn (672)  |  Look (584)  |  Older (7)  |  Reap (19)  |  Say (989)  |  See (1094)  |  Show (353)  |  Something (718)  |  Soon (187)  |  Statistics (170)  |  Subject (543)  |  Success (327)  |  Thought (995)  |  Through (846)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whoever (42)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wing (79)  |  Work (1402)  |  Young (253)

In former times, … when ships buffeted by storms threw a portion of their cargo overboard, it was recognized that those whose goods were sacrificed had a claim in equity to indemnification at the expense of those whose goods were safely delivered. The value of the lost goods was paid for by agreement between all those whose merchandise had been in the same ship. This sea damage to cargo in transit was known as “havaria” and the word came naturally to be applied to the compensation money which each individual was called upon to pay. From this Latin word derives our modern word average.
— Michael J. Moroney
In 'On the Average', Facts From Figures (1951), Chap. 4, 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Agreement (55)  |  Applied (176)  |  Apply (170)  |  Average (89)  |  Call (781)  |  Cargo (6)  |  Claim (154)  |  Compensation (8)  |  Damage (38)  |  Deliver (30)  |  Derive (70)  |  Equity (4)  |  Expense (21)  |  Former (138)  |  Good (906)  |  Goods (9)  |  Hazard (21)  |  Indemnification (2)  |  Individual (420)  |  Known (453)  |  Latin (44)  |  Lost (34)  |  Merchandise (2)  |  Modern (402)  |  Money (178)  |  Nomencalture (4)  |  Overboard (3)  |  Portion (86)  |  Sacrifice (58)  |  Safely (7)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Storm (56)  |  Storms (18)  |  Throw (45)  |  Time (1911)  |  Transit (2)  |  Value (393)  |  Voyage (13)  |  Word (650)

The words figure and fictitious both derive from the same Latin root, fingere. Beware!
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts from Figures (1951), 56.
Science quotes on:  |  Beware (16)  |  Both (496)  |  Derive (70)  |  Figure (162)  |  Latin (44)  |  Root (121)  |  Word (650)

There is more than a germ of truth in the suggestion that, in a society where statisticians thrive, liberty and individuality are likely to be emasculated.
— Michael J. Moroney
In Facts From Figures (1951), 1
Science quotes on:  |  Germ (54)  |  Individual (420)  |  Individuality (25)  |  Liberty (29)  |  More (2558)  |  Society (350)  |  Statistician (27)  |  Suggestion (49)  |  Thrive (22)  |  Truth (1109)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.