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When the law’s on your side, pound the law. When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. And when neither is on your side, pound the table.

— John Allen Paulos A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

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Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Section 3, “Lifestyle, Spin, and Soft News” Chapter 23, “Tsongkerclintkinbro Wins” (p. 106)
Work: A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, 1995
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by John Allen Paulos

Humor, since it depends on so many emotional, social, and intellectual facets of human beings, is particularly immune to computer simulation.

Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980)

Two dangers threaten the world—order and disorder.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Innumerate people characteristically have a strong tendency to personalize—to be misled by their own experiences, or by the media’s focus on individuals and drama.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

There is no such thing as free lunch, and even if there were, there’d be no guarantee against indigestion.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

The whole weight of science is the prima facie evidence against a miracle having occurred.

Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up (2008)

Correlation and causation are two quite different words, and the innumerate are more prone to mistake them than most.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

To follow foolish precedents, and wink with both eyes, is easier than to think.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

After all, one must have some grasp of logic even to recognize a non sequitur.

Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980)

All John Allen Paulos quotes →

More quotes by John Allen Paulos

Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

There’s always enough random success to justify almost anything to someone who wants to believe.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

In general, any differences between two groups will always be greatly accentuated at the extremes.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Even the most superficial of a newspaper reveals an important aspect of human psychology: our preoccupation with the short term.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Appreciating humor—even recognizing it—requires human skills of the highest order (level?); no computer comes close to having them.

Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Allen Paulos (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.