"What an education follows! It is really a fine comedy, though the players rarely know it. I am but a clumsy performer myself, and have to confess to incurable defects of training, so that I sometimes wonder I have not been hissed off the stage; still I have seen the performance through more than once or twice, and know something about it. Such tender and delicate adjustments and readjustments of convictions to keep the party balance sure! Such abundance of spoonmeat on the one hand, and such careful economy on the other of truths that may prove too strong for weak digestions! Such avowals of readiness to consider seriously any opinion, however obviously absurd, broached by a possible supporter! Such prompt denunciations of all the devices of an irreconcilable opponent!"
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Members of the Parliament of the United KingdomLiberal Party (UK) politiciansMathematicians from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomGovernment ministers
Original Language: English
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Leonard H. Courtney
1897 – 1899
Leonard Henry Courtney, 1st Baron Courtney (6 July 1832 – 11 May 1918) was a British politician, long held to have made the first published reference to the phrase "Lies — damned lies — and statistics" in 1895. He later became president of the Royal Statistical Society (1897–1899).
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