Probability Quotes

"I think you’re begging the question, "said Haydock, "and I can see looming ahead one of those terrible exercises in probability where six men have white hats and six men have black hats and you have to work it out by mathematics how likely it is that the hats will get mixed up and in what proportion. If you start thinking about things like that, you would go round the bend. Let me assure you of that!"

-Agatha Christie The Mirror Crack’d. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1962.

The [theory of probability]...enters into the regulation of some of the most important practical concerns of modern life.

-George Chrystal

It is a truth very certain that, when it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

-Rene Descartes

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers...There is a divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance or death.

-Sir John Falstaff Merry Wives of Windsor, v. i. 2.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view.

-John Gay In J.R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956. p. 1334.

It has been pointed out already that no knowledge of probabilities, less in degree than certainty, helps us to know what conclusions are true, and that there is no direct relation between truth of a proposition and its probability. Probability begins and ends with probability.

-John Maynard Keynes The Application of Probability to Conduct

He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain.

-Voltaire In J.R. Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956.

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