Statistics are somewhat like ...

Statistics are somewhat like old medical journals, or like revolvers in newly opened mining districts. Most men rarely use them, and find it troublesome to preserve them so as to have them easy of access; but when they do want them, they want them badly.
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 John Shaw Billings

Quotes from the same author

On speaking: first, have something to say; second, say it; third, stop when you have said it; and finally give it an accurate title.
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 John Shaw Billings
There's nothing really difficult if you only begin - some people contemplate a task until it looms so big, it seems impossible, but I just begin and it gets done somehow. There would be no coral islands if the first bug sat down and began to wonder how the job was to be done.
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 John Shaw Billings
If free men refused to look at dead bodies then brave men will have died in vain.
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 John Shaw Billings