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  ...been slowing down steadily in these thirty-six years, but I perceive that my statistics have a defect: three thousand words in the spring of 1868 when I was working seven or eight or nine hours at a sitting has little or no advantage over the sitting of to-day, covering half the time and producing half the output. Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force:
" There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.   "
[_Dictated, January 23, 1907._]--The proverb says that Providence protects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I have tested it. It did not protect George through the most of his campaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity of the proverb stood confirmed.
[Sidenote: (1865.)]
I have several times been saved by this mysterious interposition, when I was manifestly in extreme peril. It has been common, all my life, for smart people to...   Disraeli, Benjamin

Source: MARK TWAIN, Mark Twains Autobiography, p. 246 , quotes this as a remark attributed to Disraeli.Current quotation books, in addition to naming Mark Twain or Disraeli, have suggested Henry Labouchere, Abram S. Hewitt, and Holloway H. Frost; one bravely says author unidentified.The quotation, or a variation, seems to be known internationally. When a Russian citizen was interviewed, following the death of Chernenko, he began by saying, As one of your writers said, There are three kinds of lie: a small lie, a big lie and politics.Time, March 25, 1985, p. 21. · Excerpt from Chapters from My Autobiography · This quote is tagged Statistics · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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