A Quote by W. C. Fields

Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics which prove that more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol. — © W. C. Fields
Wouldn't it be terrible if I quoted some reliable statistics which prove that more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.
When I grew up in the South, I was taught that segregation was the will of God, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that women were by nature in inferior to men, and the Bible was quoted to prove it. I was taught that it was okay to hate other religions, and especially the Jews, and the Bible was quoted to prove it.
Statistics on religious affiliation are notoriously slippery: the government isn't allowed to gather such data, and the membership claims of religious organizations aren't entirely reliable.
I think memories are like dreams. Not reliable proof of anything. I can't prove a memory any more than I can prove a dream.
People who quoted the Scriptures in criticism of others were terrible bores and usually they misapplied the text. One could prove anything against anyone from the Bible.
Insight is not the same as scientific deduction, but even at that it may be more reliable than statistics.
The most terrible thing about materialism, even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offer a prospect of deliverance.
Unfortunately the global warming hysteria, as I see it, is driven by politics more than by science.
If I was a supervillain, I think I'd probably ban all smoking and drinking. That's exactly what I'd do: I'd remove all the cigarettes and alcohol from the world. That would piss so many people off. That's worse than, like, murdering puppies. For some people.
The alcohol was awful. I was a terrible alcoholic. I mean, people used to ask how much drugs I did. I said, 'I only do drugs so I can drink more'. I was doing the coke so I could drink more. I mean, I don't know any other reason. I'd start drinking in the morning. I'd drink all day long.
People make a decision on what they take based on whether or not it's legal. We give people at the age of 18 a choice to use alcohol, which is more harmful than cannabis. If they have the choice to use cannabis by legalising it, they'll be less likely to drink alcohol, giving people an option to use a safer drug. If people end up using cannabis instead of alcohol, that would obviously be a good thing.
I do not ... reject the use of statistics in medicine, but I condemn not trying to get beyond them and believing in statistics as the foundation of medical science. ... Statistics ... apply only to cases in which the cause of the facts observed is still [uncertain or] indeterminate. ... There will always be some indeterminism ... in all the sciences, and more in medicine than in any other. But man's intellectual conquest consists in lessening and driving back indeterminism in proportion as he gains ground for determinism by the help of the experimental method.
I tried to eat better too, but when you're on tour you literally just eat some hideous pork pie on the motorway on the way to a show. It's a really unhealthy lifestyle: you're up late, drinking loads of coffee to stay awake, drinking loads of alcohol because you're socialising with people.
Statistics prove that teenage Internet gambling is the fastest growing addiction of the day, akin to drug and alcohol abuse in the 1930s. It's pernicious, it's evil, it's certainly one that feeds on those who are the weakest members of society - and that's the young and the poor.
Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.
[Statistics] The science that can prove everything except the usefulness of statistics.
Alcohol ruined me financially and morally, broke my heart and the hearts of too many others. Even though it did this to me and it almost killed me and I haven't touched a drop of it in seventeen years, sometimes I wonder if I could get away with drinking some now. I totally subscribe to the notion that alcoholism is a mental illness because thinking like that is clearly insane.
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