The 11 Best Data Quotes
Ever since before starting DataMarket back in 2008, I’ve been collecting funny, insightful and thought-provoking quotes about data and information. Here is my current list of top 11 favorites:
-
11. Many have tried to describe the importance of data in industrial, or even agricultural terms
Data are becoming the new raw material of business
- Craig Mundie, head of research and strategy, Microsoft
Data is the new oil!
- Clive Humby, ANA Senior marketer’s summit, 2006
Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine,”
- Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner
Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil.
- David McCandless, TEDGlobal, 2010
-
10. …others in terms of previous breakthroughs in IT
Data is the Next Intel Inside
- Tim O’Reilly, What Is Web 2.0
-
9. The love of data visualization is not new
There is a magic in graphs. The profile of a curve reveals in a flash a whole situation — the life history of an epidemic, a panic, or an era of prosperity. The curve informs the mind, awakens the imagination, convinces.
- Henry D. Hubbard, 1939
-
8. First we have data…
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
- Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett (Arthur Conan Doyle)
-
7. …the rest is built on top
You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data.
-
6. He may not have always played by the book, but he knew what was needed to get the job done
The most valuable commodity I know of is information.
- Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)
-
5. A reminder to be careful in your analysis and don’t stretch to get the results you’d like
Torture the data, and it will confess to anything
- Ronald Coase, Economics, Nobel Prize Laureate
-
4. People take good care of data that is important to them
Data that is loved tends to survive
- Kurt Bollacker, Data Scientist, Freebase/Infochimps
-
3. …and – as most good things – it just improves with age
Data matures like wine, applications like fish
-
Andy Todd ?James Governor (see comment below) -
2. What use are statistics any way?
In times like these when unemployment rates are up to 13%, income has fallen by 5% and suicide rates are climbing I get so angry that the government is wasting money on things like collection of statistics!
- From Hans Rosling’s The Joy of Stats
-
1. Finally, my very favorite data quote (and principle in life)
If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.
- Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEO
Additional submissions welcomed in comments below. What are your favorite data quotes?
Nice list – like you, I think I like #1 the most. What about the most basic of most: “In god we trust, everyone else bring data” (I think Jeff Bezos came up with this one).
Best
Bruno
VP Marketing, SiSense.com
Bruno Aziza
July 10, 2012 at 6:17 am
Actually the quote its attributed to Deming, ironically there’s no data to confirm that.
Christian (@cportom)
July 13, 2012 at 12:06 am
[...] Hjalmar Gislason of DataMarket Blog recently put together a collection of the most insightful, useful, and sometimes funny quotes about data and information that he has come across over the last several years. Here are a few of the best ones: [...]
The Best Quotes about Data | Big Data | DATAVERSITY
July 10, 2012 at 7:05 am
[...] Gislason hat im DataMarket-Blog diese und weitere seiner elf Lieblingszitate über Daten [...]
Infobib » “Data that is loved tends to survive”
July 10, 2012 at 4:43 pm
W Edwards Deming “In God we trust, all others bring data” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming
robhumphrey
July 16, 2012 at 1:07 am
For more quotes on Data, Information, Knowledge and Systems see Information Alchemy’s Quote of the Week http://www.information-alchemy.co.uk/quotes.htm
Gary Palmer
July 20, 2012 at 1:49 pm
[...] "Data matures like wine, applications like fish". This came from a blog post called the 11 best data quotes from the DataMarket blog. On that list (which I highly recommend reading) the quote was tentatively [...]
Andrew Channels Dexter Pinion » Quotable Quotes
July 21, 2012 at 11:02 am
The Jim Barksdale quotation is my favorite too. Would also add “Without big data, you are blind and deaf and in the middle of a freeway.” – Geoffrey Moore, author and consultant, although I tend to think Moore’s words amount to a bit of an understatement. Other favorites here: bit.ly/Qw42y3
Blaire (@VenEnthusiast)
August 1, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Andy Todd, whom we originally attributed the “Data like wine, applications like fish” quote to has dug up the original quote, actually from Redmonk’s James Governor. See Andy’s post about it.
Hjalmar Gislason
August 6, 2012 at 10:57 pm