Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1769
AUTHOR:
Mark Twain (1835–1910)
QUOTATION:
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
ATTRIBUTION:
MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain’s Autobiography, p. 246 (1924), quotes this as a remark attributed to Disraeli.
Current quotation books, in addition to naming Mark Twain or Disraeli, have suggested Henry Labouchère, 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.
