Noel Annan, Baron Annan quotes

Academic staff rather enjoy coming to conclusions, but they don't like coming to decisions at all.
-- Noel Annan, Baron Annan

#Decision #Statistics #Academic

To worry is to acknowledge that the world is unpredictable, and there is power in understanding one's own powerlessness at times. But too often worry takes on life of its own. Men are quite prone to this. They'll plague themselves with so many 'what if's and 'if only's that they soon forget to ponder the true possibilities before them. Which inevitably lead to poor decisions. Whatever happens will happen. Sometimes we have say over the future. Sometimes we don't. Either way, worrying alone never accomplishes anything.

According to FBI statistics for 2008, only 22 percent of murder victims were killed by strangers. More than 30 percent were slain by family members, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Nearly half of all murders were committed by friends, neighbors, and casual acquaintances.

If you torture statistics long enough, they'll eventually confess the truth

Statistics have shown that mortality increases perceptibly in the military during wartime.

no study has brought out any solid evidence that the death penalty deters crime. In fact, Amnesty reports that 'the murder rate in states which use the death penalty is twice that of states which do not, according to FBI statistics.

It was one thing to have guessed it, another to have had that guess confirmed beyond possibility of refutation.

If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.

I'm an academic. It's publish or perish.

I was always more of an academic than a jock.

Good photography is not about Zone Printing or any other Ansel Adams nonsense. It's just about seeing. You either see or you don't see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more.