Some Haphazard Aphorisms for Epidemiology and Life

F or more than a quarter of a century, I have accumulated from unexpected sources a ragbag of quotations relevant to the practice of epidemiology. I have even coined a few myself. This paper brings many of them together in one place and acknowledges their origins for the amusement and instruction of colleagues. My motives are not entirely altruistic: I do hope to benefi t a little from the refl ected glory of those I quote—and of course any publication is a bonus. The collection is necessarily idiosyncratic and personal. It favors quotes from outside public health rather than the better known sayings of experts in the fi eld. Because I am an epidemiologist, it is biased towards epidemiology rather than microbiology or infection control. It pretends to be neither comprehensive nor representative of anything but my own taste, and it obviously cannot include every-one's favorites. It may be fl awed, but I will consider it a success if, like the British Broadcasting Corporation, it " informs , educates, and entertains. " Methods I consulted my memory for quotations of interest to epidemiologists and health protection professionals. Where possible, I confi rmed the actual words of quotations and cited their origins. I have categorized the entries subjectively by topic. I have fl outed the convention that the Methods section should contain methods exclusively, and that the results and discussion should be confi ned to their designated sections. My citations are haphazard. Having tried hard and failed to identify the fi rst quote, I took the advice of W.C. Fields (1880–1946), " If at fi rst you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it. " I have accordingly described my sources in as much detail as possible with minimum effort. " If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well enough for the purpose in hand—to do it any better is wasted effort " (Anonymous). My citations, although insuffi ciently precise for a scientifi c paper, match or exceed those in most books of quotations. If a reader wants to run a quote to earth, there is enough information to get them started. I have tried to avoid clichés (though I mention " lies, damned lies, and statistics " in a comment), the knowledge of which confers little cachet on the user, in favor of less widely known and wittier quotes. …