On the Internet, you can often find a quote attributed to Twain, that there are three types of lies: lies, impudent lies and statistics. We decided to check if such an attribution is fair.

In the original, the phrase sounds like “There Three Kinds of Lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. Damned translates into the Russian word as “impudent”, then as “big”. This phrase Can Meet on sites With selection diverse Quote. Often use it Users V numerous Blogs in "Live magazine" and on "Habre", V social networkseven in scientific articles. Attributed this phrase to Twain and Rosstat In the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

The phrase “There are three types of lies: a lie, impudent lies and statistics” is really found in Mark Twain in “Chapters from my autobiography", Which he published in 1906 in the journal North American Review. At the same time, the writer himself does not at all claim the authorship of the phrase-he ascribes it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Dizraeli. However, neither we nor our colleagues, Also Trying It was not possible to establish the authorship of this quote, it was not possible to find it in any of the works, letters or performances of Dizraeli. So, probably, Mark Twain also incorrectly attributed this quote.

In 1895, this phrase Said British politician, Lord Leonard Courtney In his speech during a visit to New York. However, he did not attribute to himself authorship, quoting, according to him, a “wise statesman”. Perhaps Mark Twain thought that it was about Dizraeli, and therefore indicated him as an author, but it is not known for certain who Courtney had in mind. It is noteworthy that Courtney, who had so critically described statistics, was for some time president Royal Statistical Society of Great Britain.

But this phrase is also found to Courtney - in the article by Manchester Guardian from 1892 under the name “Mr. Balfur’s answer to Professor Munro”. The publication is a report on the performance of the British politician (and in the future and prime minister) Arthur James Balfur before the collection of Eastern Manchester electors in the school classes Kraist-Cherch, Bradford. Perhaps it was Courtney who had in mind, speaking of a wise state figure, but Balfur himself claims that this is an old saying.

I must say that the lie was divided into three types before. Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the XIII century, in the name of one of the chapters of his labor Summa theologica He wondered: "Is it enough to divide the lie into an official, playful and harmful?" In 1874, a priest and theologian Alfred Nevin Published "Notes: exegetical, practical and religious to the book Exodus", where a little Poprazed Aquinsky: "There is a malicious or pernicious lie ... there is a humorous lie ... and there is an official lies."

In 1885, the British scientific journal Nature in one of the articles brought Another similar classification with reference to the "famous lawyer, now judge", dividing witnesses into "ordinary liars, insolent liars and experts." The Kansas Law Journal in 1886 went even further. The author of one of the articles also with reference to a certain judge declaredThat three types of liars are testified in court: "Lawyers, liars and experts." In 1889, one of the speakers at a meeting of the Association of Talographists of New York told About his friend-apparatus. He from practice deduced the following classification of witnesses who lie in the testimony: liars, great liars and experts.

Finally, in 1891, statistics appeared in the classification of three types of lies. London The National Observer published letter a certain T. Mackeya (presumably, British politics and economist Thomas Mackeya), who claimed that there are three types of untruth: the first is an invention, the second is a frank lie, the third, the worst - statistics. In the same year, in the British Medical Journal, in an article on vaccination, this quote is apparently for the first time Attributed Mark Twain. Quotation researcher Stephen Goranson attributes The authorship of the quote from the British policy Charles Dilka, since he managed to find three examples of using the dick of this phrase in 1891 without a reference to any other author.

In January 1892, the statistics of Robert Giffen made a report in the Australian-Nosodeland Association of Assistance to the Development of Science. He Commented This quote is like this: “The old joke says that liars can be divided into three categories: there are liars, there are arrogant liars, and there are scientific experts. Later she was modified to water the statistics with mud. Now they say that a lie can be divided into three categories: there is a lie, there is a impudent lie, but there are statistics. STATASTICS scientists can afford to laugh at the jokes directed against them, and even benefit from them. ” By the way, if you believe Giffen that the phrase was recently converted, this is another indirect evidence that Dizraeli was not the author of the phrase, because he died 11 years before.

Authoritative Portal Quote Investigator, which is engaged in checking the correct attribution of quotes, Found Many other similar examples that were used in various variations long before this phrase was published by tweet and attributed to Dizraeli.

Thus, it is impossible to determine exactly who is the authorship of the phrase about three types of lies. However, with confidence it can be said that her author is not Mark Twain, since he himself ascribes it to another person. It was not possible to find her in the works of Benjamin Dizraeli, which Twain indicates. The very division of lies into three types was quite common and is found in the works of Thomas Aquinas, so the quote about statistics was not unconditionally original. This is only one of the variations of the template that was used in the press and public speeches earlier, but fixed and became an independent winged expression, popular today.

Photo on the cover: Mark Twain, Underwood & Underwood, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons