On the Internet you can often find a quote attributed to Mark Twain that there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. We decided to check whether this attribution is fair.

In the original, the phrase sounds like “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The word damned is translated into Russian either as “brazen” or as “big”. This phrase Can meet on websites With selections various quotes. It is often used users V numerous blogs in "LiveJournal» and on "Habré», V social networks, even in scientific articles. Attributed this phrase to Twain and Rosstat in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

The phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics” actually appears in Mark Twain’s “Chapters from my autobiography", which he published in 1906 in the North American Review. At the same time, the writer himself does not at all claim to be the author of the phrase - he attributes it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. However, neither us nor ours colleagues, Also trying To establish the authorship of this quote, it was not possible to find it in any of Disraeli's works, letters or speeches. So Mark Twain probably also misattributed this quote.

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

But the phrase appears before Courtenay, in an 1892 Manchester Guardian article entitled “Mr Balfour’s Reply to Professor Munro.” The publication is an account of the speech of the British politician (and future Prime Minister) Arthur James Balfour before a meeting of the electors of East Manchester in the school classrooms of Christ Church, Bradford. This may be what Courtney had in mind when he spoke of the wise statesman, but Balfour himself claims that it is an old saying.

It must be said that lies have been divided into three types before. Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the 13th century, in the title of one of the chapters of his work Summa Theologica wondered: “Is it enough to divide lies into official, playful and harmful?” In 1874, the priest and theologian Alfred Nevin published "Notes: Exegetical, Practical and Devotional on the Book of Exodus", where a little paraphrased Aquinas: “There are malicious or harmful lies... there are playful lies... and there are official lies.”

In 1885, the British scientific journal Nature in one of its articles brought another similar classification with reference to "a famous lawyer, now a judge", dividing witnesses into "simple liars, brazen liars and experts." The Kansas Law Journal went even further in 1886. The author of one of the articles also with reference to a certain judge stated, that three types of liars testify in court: “lawyers, liars and experts.” In 1889, one of the speakers at a meeting of the New York Stenographers' Association told about his lawyer friend. From practice, he derived the following classification of witnesses who lie in their testimony: liars, great liars and experts.

Finally, in 1891, statistics appeared in the classification of the three types of lies. London's The National Observer published letter a certain T. Mackay (presumably a British politician and economist Thomas Mackay), who argued that there are three types of untruths: the first is fiction, the second is outright lies, and the third, the worst, is statistics. In the same year, in the British Medical Journal, in an article on vaccination, this quote was apparently first used. attributed Mark Twain. Quote researcher Stephen Goranson attributes The quotation is attributed to the British politician Charles Dilke, as he was able to find three examples of Dilke using the phrase in 1891 without citing any other author.

In January 1892, statistician Robert Giffen gave a presentation to the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science. He commented This quote is like this: “An old joke says that liars can be divided into three categories: there are liars, there are blatant liars, and there are scientific experts. Later it was modified to throw mud at the statistics. Now they say that lies can be divided into three categories: there are lies, there are blatant lies, and there are statistics. Statistical scientists can afford to laugh at jokes directed at them, and even benefit from them.” By the way, if you believe Giffen that the phrase was redone recently, this is another indirect evidence that Disraeli was not the author of the phrase, because he died 11 years earlier.

The authoritative portal Quote Investigator, which checks the correct attribution of quotes, found many other similar examples were used in various variations long before the phrase was published by Twain and attributed to Disraeli.

Thus, it is impossible to establish exactly who authored the phrase about the three types of lies. However, we can say with confidence that its author is not Mark Twain, since he himself attributes it to another person. It was not possible to find it in the works of Benjamin Disraeli, whom Twain points to. 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 something absolutely original. This is just one of the variations of the template, which was used in the press and public speeches before, but has taken hold and become an independent catchphrase, popular today.

Cover photo: Mark Twain, Underwood & Underwood, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons