Quotes & Sayings About Census

The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utha, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United State ... there was no surplus of women. — John Andreas Widtsoe

I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture." Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it. — Laura Lippman

Conservatives need to know how important it is to fill out the census. It is one of the only things our Constitution specifically asks of U.S. citizens and boycotting will just help liberals expand government even further. — Patrick McHenry

You can't choose between right and wrong by taking a census. — Elizabeth Taylor

Christianity had not started off as the ideology of an empire. Virtually nothing is known about its supposed founder, Jesus of Nazareth. There is not even any definite proof he was a historical rather than a mythical figure. Certainly the proof is not to be found in the Christian New Testament. It claims his birth was in Bethlehem in the Roman province of Judaea, where his family had gone for a census during the time of Augustus. But there was no census at the time stated and Judaea was not a Roman province at the time. When a census was held in AD 7 it did not require anyone to leave their place of residence. Similarly, the New Testament locates Jesus's birth as in the time of King Herod, who died in 4 BC. Roman and Greek writers of the time make no mention of Jesus and a supposed reference by the Jewish-Roman writer Josephus is almost certainly a result of the imagination of medieval monks.100 — Chris Harman

America's demographic shift was obvious to everyone in the 2010 Census - but Republicans stubbornly rejected math, facts, and polls to their electoral peril. While Republicans tailored their platform by and for the pale stale and male, among us, Obama and Democrats are embracing America's diverse mosaic. — Christine Pelosi

I had been hearing on-the-ground buzz that white folks were moving to places like Bend, Oregon, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and St. George, Utah. That led me to discover through census data that these towns were already extremely white and they were becoming, in most cases, even whiter. Statistics could only tell me so much; in order to get to the spirit and essence of it, I had to immerse myself. — Richard Benjamin

We didn't think taxes ought to go up. They ought to go down. We didn't think the census ought to be weakened. — Pete Du Pont

It's often difficult for conservatives to separate overall government intervention from a question as simple as the census. — Patrick McHenry

The U.S. Census Bureau considers mothers the "designated parent," even when both parents are present in the home. When mothers care for their children, it's "parenting," but when fathers care for their children, the government deems it a "child care arrangement." I have even heard a few men say that they are heading home to "babysit" for their children. I have never heard a woman refer to taking care of her own children as "babysitting." A friend of mine ran a team-building exercise during a company retreat where people were asked to fill in their hobbies. Half of the men in the group listed "their children" as hobbies. A hobby? For most mothers, kids are not a hobby. Showering is a hobby. — Sheryl Sandberg

Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

the U.S. Census Bureau has not asked about religious affiliation since 1946 — Robert P. Jones

There was once upon a time a census officer who had to record the names of all householders in a certain Welsh village. The first that he questioned was called William Williams; so were the second, third, fourth.... At last he said to himself: 'This is tedious; evidently they are all called William Williams. I shall put them down so and take a holiday'. But he was wrong; there was just one whose name was John Jones. This shows that we may go astray if we trust too implicitly to induction by simple enumeration. — Bertrand Russell

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, male nurses ride the "glass escalator"; although they are in the minority, they receive higher wages and faster promotions than women in the same jobs. — Alexandra Robbins

Right and wrong are not the product of census. — Terry Goodkind

The first presidential veto, by George Washington, was a veto of Alexander Hamilton's formula for apportioning the House, and the one that Washington preferred was one that Thomas Jefferson produced, and that was one partisan issue. The apportionment formula that Jefferson produced gave an extra seat to Virginia. Everybody knew what that game was. Look, partisan interest in the census is simply nothing new. — Kenneth Prewitt

Hold it right there. You men from the bank?" "You Wash's boy?" "Yessir and Daddy told me I'm to shoot whoever's from the bank." "Well, we ain't from the bank young feller." "Yessir, I'm also s'posed to shoot folks serving papers." "We ain't got no papers neither." "I nicked the census man." "Now there's a good boy. — Joel Coen

If there were a Pulitzer for bleak irony, however, it would go to the News for its Saturday-morning report on one of the most important local stories of the year - the Galveston count of the 1900 U.S. census, which the newspaper had first announced on Friday. The news was excellent: Over the last decade of the nineteenth century, the city's population had increased by 29.93 percent, the highest growth rate of any southern city counted so far. — Erik Larson

The British census of Palestine in 1922 recorded 84,000 Jews and 670,000 Arabs, of whom 71,000 were Christian, most of the remainder being Muslim. — Lawrence Wright

The political reputation of Servius rests upon his organization of society according to a fixed scale of rank and fortune. He originated the census, a measure of the highest utility to a state destined, as Rome was, to future preeminence; for by means of its public service, in peace as well as in war, could thence forward be regularly organized on the basis of property; every man's contribution could be in proportion to his means. — Livy

Genealogy is among the fastest-growing leisure pursuits in the U.K. Indeed, the urge to uncover the truth about our ancestors has proved so compelling that, when the 1901 census first went online, the website crashed after a million people logged on within hours of its launch. — Rory Bremner

The only census of the senses, so far as I am aware, that ever before made them more than five, was the Irishman's reckoning of seven senses. I presume the Irishman's seventh sense was common sense; and I believe that the possession of that virtue by my countrymen-I speak as an Irishman. — Lord Kelvin

There are some who complain that there is not enough food grain. But I put the argument that at the moment we use 2000 census population figures and require 50-55 million tonnes for distribution. — K. V. Thomas

See what's inside a drop of water. The whole seed of the universe. Come, come. See what's inside a drop of blood. The composition of life. It's all there. Hate as well. We approach the mystery of life, but it's impossible to understand the mystery of hate. The kind of hate that causes people not only to kill, but to want to erase you from the census of births. I have to concentrate on that mystery. Read everything there is. It has to be in a drop of blood. It has to have its chemistry. — Manuel Rivas

The Soviet census of 1937 found eight million fewer people than projected: most of these were famine victims in Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Kazakhstan, and Soviet Russia, and the children that they did not then have. Stalin suppressed its findings and had the responsible demographers — Timothy Snyder

Thus the great civilizer sends out its emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and light-house of the New World which the census-taker visits, and summons the savage there to surrender. — Henry David Thoreau

A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling. — Thomas Harris

With a thousand joys I would accept a nonacademic job for which industriousness, accuracy, loyalty, and such are sufficient without specialized knowledge, and which would give a comfortable living and sufficient leisure, in order to sacrifice to my gods [mathematical research]. For example, I hope to get the editting of the census, the birth and death lists in local districts, not as a job, but for my pleasure and satisfaction ... — Carl Friedrich Gauss

Inspired by the punched railway tickets of the time, an inventor by the name of Herman Hollerith devised a system of punched manila cards to store information, and a machine, which he called the Hollerith Machine, to count and sort them. Hollerith was awarded a patent in 1889, and the government adopted the Hollerith Machine for the 1890 census. No one had ever seen anything like it. Wrote one awestruck observer, "The apparatus works as unerringly as the mills of the Gods, but beats them hollow as to speed." Another, however, reasoned that the invention was of limited use: "As no one will ever use it but governments, the inventor will not likely get very rich." This prediction, which Hollerith clipped and saved, would not prove entirely correct. Hollerith's firm merged with several others in 1911 to become the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. A few years later it was renamed - to International Business Machines, or IBM. — Brian Christian

I started sharpening pencils at the census and how that was a difficult time in my life because my marriage was ending and I had quit cartooning and I didn't know what to do with myself. — David Rees

The guest list, if there had been one, was a little like a census. — John Steinbeck

No worldly mind would ever have suspected that He Who could make the sun warm the earth would one day have need of an ox and an ass to warm Him with their breath; that He Who, in the language of Scriptures, could stop the turning about of Arcturus would have His birthplace dictated by an imperial census; that He, Who clothed the fields with grass, would Himself be naked; that He, from Whose hands came planets and worlds, would one day have tiny arms that were not long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle; that the feet which trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that the Eternal Word would be dumb; that Omnipotence would be wrapped in swaddling clothes; that Salvation would lie in a manger; that the bird which built the nest would be hatched therein - no one would ever have suspected that God coming to this earth would ever be so helpless. And that is precisely why so many miss Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it. — Fulton J. Sheen

Whereas today people often understate their age to census takers, studies of past censuses have revealed that they used to overstate it. — Atul Gawande

Liberals believe that crime is inextricably linked with poverty. In reality, most poor people never resort to crime, and some wealthy people commit evil acts to enrich themselves further. Harlem, East Los Angeles, the South side of Chicago are not the poorest communities in the United States. According to a new U.S. Bureau of the Census report, the poorest communities are Shannon County, South Dakota, followed by Starr, Texas, and Tunica, Mississippi. Have you ever heard of these residents rioting to protest their living conditions? — Rush Limbaugh

A census taker once tried to test me. I let my front garden eat him. — Jonathan L. Howard

Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen - the census taker - and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million. — O. Henry

You and I are forever at the mercy of the census-taker and the census-maker. That impertinent fellow who goes from house to house is one of the real masters of the statistical situation. The other is the man who organizes the results. — Walter Lippmann

In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. — Peter Singer

The U.S. Census Bureau acknowledged this fact when it reported that those with a bachelor's degree earn on average $1 million more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma. — Elijah Cummings

But that spring, the complex and tenuous political arrangements that had made their positions possible were undone by the racism of a new regime. "I have plans that are all ruined, utterly ruined," despaired Census clerk William Jennifer.1 The opportunities and stability he and so many others had come to expect from government employment would all but vanish. This is a book about how that world of possibility, work, politics, and mobility was snuffed out. It is a story of how "good government" became the special preserve of white men. — Eric S. Yellin

There is still quite a lot of life out there, but it is mostly very small. According to a wildlife census by an ecologist at the University of Illinois named V. E. Shelford, a typical ten-square-mile block of eastern American forest holds almost 300,000 mammals - 220,000 mice and other small rodents, 63,500 squirrels and chipmunks, 470 deer, 30 foxes, and 5 black bears. — Bill Bryson

A recent poll shows that a majority of blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics do not think the Census should be classifying people as black, white, Asian and Hispanic. — Thomas Sowell

The ownership of slaves became for many immigrants the single most important symbol of their success in the New World, although few of them ever participated in the economy of the large plantation. The small slaveholding culture of the colonial frontier had been largely responsible for the initial expansion of the antebellum South, and that culture persisted. The comments of travelers are confirmed by the census returns and tax records: these people only infrequently became large planters. Furthermore, their ethnicity survived until the last decades of the antebellum — James Oakes

It's hard to know exactly how many empty houses there are...the census placed the figure, in the United States, in 2000, at about 10.5 million housing units (including apartments, counting duplexes as two, and so forth). For comparison: less than a quarter million people lived in homeless shelters in 2000. — Shay Salomon

The number of saintly men has not yet risen to the level where the census makes them a separate statistical category. — George Stigler

Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible. — Jonathan Sacks

If Congress sees fit to impose a capitation, or other direct tax, it must be laid in proportion to the census; if Congress determines to impose duties, imposts, and excises, they must be uniform throughout the United States. These are not strictly limitations of power. They are rules prescribing the mode in which it shall be exercised. This review shows that personal property, contracts, occupations, and the like have never been regarded by Congress as proper subjects of direct tax. — Salmon P. Chase

I hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don't return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you. — Andy Rooney

I didn't set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind. — Jasper Fforde

it is very often the case in large metro areas that the geographic locations of desirable housing with good school districts are far from the place where there are the best job opportunities. Meanwhile, lack of access to a car is one of the most debilitating aspects of modern poverty, particularly for those in places where public transportation is scarce and unsteady. According to the 2000 census, 8 percent of Americans resided in a household without access to a car, but that number varies widely depending on class and location. Among the poor nationwide, 20 percent live in households that don't have access to a car, and — Christopher L. Hayes

Not only may you not enter the state without certification: you are, in the eyes of the state, not dead until you are certified dead; and you can be certified dead only by an officer who himself (herself) holds state certification. The state pursues the certification of death with extraordinary thoroughness - witness the dispatch of a host of forensic scientists and bureaucrats to scrutinize and photograph and prod and poke the mountain of human corpses left behind by the great tsunami of December 2004 in order to establish their individual identities. No expense is spared to ensure that the census of subjects shall be complete and accurate.
Whether the citizen lives or dies is not a concern of the state. What matters to the state and its records is whether the citizen is alive or dead. — J.M. Coetzee

Census figures be damned: If you choose to be alone, you're destined to spend a certain amount of time wondering why. — Caroline Knapp

The first census in 1790 asked just six questions: the name of the head of the household, the number of free white males older than 16, the number of free white males younger than 16, the number of free white females, the number of other free persons, and the number of slaves. — Tom G. Palmer

According to 2008/09 census there were 61,080,000 dogs in the United States. Many homeless or mistreated. There are more pet dogs than babies in the world. — Alexander Fontana

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is defined as two or more people living together who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. In other words, the U.S. Census Bureau is run by radical leftists. Why do you think there's a whole category for the unemployed? — Stephen Colbert

the medieval contract known as the census, which allowed one party to buy a stream of annual payments from another. — Niall Ferguson

School performance, public health, crime rates, clinical depression, tax compliance, philanthropy, race relations, community development, census returns, teen suicide, economic productivity, campaign finance, even simple human happiness - all are demonstrably affected by how (and whether) we connect with our family and friends and neighbours and co-workers. — Robert D. Putnam

Money nowadays is money; money brings office; money gains friends; everywhere the poor man is down.
[Lat., In pretio pretium nunc est; dat census honores,
Census amicitias; pauper ubique jacet.] — Ovid

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: 'How many children have you, ma'am?' 'Two living and three in Melbourne.' — Elspeth Huxley

The reason the government sells the census as your ticket to getting goodies - rather than as your civic duty - is that distributing goodies is now all the government does. — Tom G. Palmer

1And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2aThis census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to bthe city of David, which is called Bethlehem, cbecause he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, dhis betrothed 1wife, who was with child. 6So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. 7And eshe brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a 2manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. — Anonymous

Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It's what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn't count it. Nothing counts without it. — Robert Fulghum

One thing that we learned that we published on our blog post is that uniformly, men lie about their height by almost exactly two inches. So if you look at a plot of census bureau data on the distribution of men's heights in the U.S. and you plot men's heights on OKCupid, it is exactly shifted two inches to the left. — Sam Yagan

Look Mister, I don't care what you think, you are bald. If the census had a "bald" category, You'd be in it, no problem. If you go to heaven, you're going to bald heaven. If you go to hell, you're going to bald hell. Have you got that straight? Then stop looking away from the truth. Let's go now. I'm taking you straight to bald heaven, nonstop. — Haruki Murakami

At the last census it indicated that about 22 per cent of Australians were born overseas. — Julie Bishop

The government has become a mechanism for distributing largess, and your census form is your ticket. — Tom G. Palmer

You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames. But if you find your great-great-grandfather in 1870 and it says he's 50, that means he was born in 1820 and you're back to 1820 already. For an American that's pretty damned good, you know? — Henry Louis Gates

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it. — Mark Davis

why were you so mean to little Chancellor Junior?" Clarke looked at him with a mixture of shock and indignation. For a moment, he thought she might actually hit him, but then she just shook her head. "That's none of your business." "Is he your boyfriend?" Bellamy pressed. "No," Clarke said flatly. But then her mouth twitched into a questioning smile. "Why do you care?" "Just taking a census," Bellamy replied. "Specifically, to determine the relationship status of all the pretty girls on Earth. — Kass Morgan

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that American homes are 650 square feet larger today than they were in 1980. Unfortunately, so are most Americans. — Conan O'Brien

I don't think the government is out to get me or help someone else get me but it wouldn't surprise me if they were out to sell me something or help someone else sell me something. I mean, why else would the Census Bureau want to know my telephone number? — Andy Rooney

Like so many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts
census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway. — Thomas Pynchon

The chief instrument of American statistics is the census, which should accomplish a two-fold object. It should serve the country by making a full and accurate exhibit of the elements of national life and strength, and it should serve the science of statistics by so exhibiting general results that they may be compared with similar data obtained by other nations. — James A. Garfield

people knocking on the door about the census. How a person is supposed — Peter Grainger

Everyone will tell you that genealogy serves two purposes: self-knowledge and social status, some sort of pedigree divined from names, locations, and achievements of eminence. However, there is nothing quite like an anomaly to suck attention away from the droning census records. A suicide hinted at emotion and thought. A closet door was flung open and daylight flooded a skeleton. — Ellen Meloy

According to the 2003 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 25.8 percent of [New Orleans] population lives below the poverty line ... This is more than twice the national average, but is close tot he percentages in other American cities such as Miami (28.5), Los Angeles (22.1), Atlanta (24.4), and New York City (21.2). — Billy Sothern

Sampling, statisticians have told us, is a much more effective way of getting a good census. — Rob Lowe

The Census Bureau is thinking of creating a new category because so many kids don't know how to describe themselves using the existing categories. I call these kids the "Keanu Reeves Generation," after the actor who has a Hawaiian father and a Welsh mother. — Richard Rodriguez

One thing that's really interesting is not only the magnitude of the recent immigration into this country, but also its distribution and its investment in the country. About 9.3 percent of the population is now foreign-born [announced by the Census Bureau at over 10 percent a few days later]. What's really surprising is how well distributed those population groups are. Historically, we see new immigrants primarily on the coast and in a few big cities. I think the data are going to show a much wider distribution of the new population groups than we've experienced historically. — Kenneth Prewitt

That's lucky?" Tom repeated bitterly. "Lucky now means 'worst case scenario ever,' then. That's great. Good to know."

"Sir," Blackburn corrected.

"You outrank me. You shouldn't call me 'sir.'"

"Raines, you'll address me as 'sir' or I will stick you back down in that cell next to the census device until 'sir' is the only word you remember."

Tom bristled. He'd never hated someone so much. "Sir, yes, sir. I'll use 'sir,' sir. Is that all, sir?"

"Oh, I'd say that's all. Get into the simulation with the others." Blackburn jabbed at his forearm keyboard. "It irritates me just looking at you."

Back at you, Tom thought. — S.J. Kincaid

According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured, as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if they used other means of resistance. — Gary Kleck

Luke [the gospel writer] screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius - a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole - but it happened too late in 6 AD, long after Herod's death. — Richard Dawkins

The actual assertion that the Census Bureau could behave in such a way as to tilt things one way or the other way in the partisan sense, is, on the face of it, a silly charge. It's the same Census Bureau that's considered to be incompetent by some people, and then some of the same people are saying that this incompetent agency is so clever and so Machiavellian that it can design a census for partisan reasons. — Kenneth Prewitt

I grew up in Harlem, a block away from what was then the most crowded block in New York City, according to the 1950 census. Something like ten thousand people lived in one city block. — Samuel R. Delany

Certainly, last year we did an episode about the census and sampling versus a direct statistic. You just said the word 'census,' and people fall asleep. — Aaron Sorkin

According to the U.S. Census, the most common reason people give for not voting is that they were too busy or had conflicting work or school schedules. — Jeff Miller

People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are. — Max Barry

...Americans didn't stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years - so typical a place that it only looks like an exception. — Jerry Herron

We know the point of the 2010 Census is to count us, one by one, to tally every last resident, but the massive project of course has more prying, if limited, interests. — Chang-rae Lee

In spite of lip service paid to domestic duties, in 1881 the Census excluded women's household chores from the category of productive work and, for the first time, housewives were classified as unoccupied. — Gabrielle Palmer

There is no definitive census of all the intelligent species in the universe. Not only are there perennial arguments about what qualifies as intelligence, but each moment and everywhere, civilizations rise and fall, much as the stars are born and die. Time devours all. Yet every species has its unique way of passing on its wisdom through the ages, its way of making thoughts visible, tangible, frozen for a moment like a bulwark against the irresistible tide of time. Everyone makes books. — Ken Liu

I struck upon this kind of crazy idea that I was going to go to New York and stop 10,000 people on the streets and take their portrait and create kind of a photographic census of the city. — Brandon Stanton

There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 - and 11,000 higher than 1997. — Estelle Morris

In the welter of statistics about selected ethnic origins (singular or multiple) in the last census, one finding was often overlooked. Of the 25,309,330 people living in Canada in 1986, only 69,065 declared themselves as Canadians. — Charlotte Gray

If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. — Michele Bachmann

No census was taken of the number of gay men and lesbians who entered the military. But if Alfred Kinsey's wartime surveys were accurate and applied as much to the military as to the civilian population, at least 650,000 and as many as 1.6 million male soldiers were homosexual. — Allan Berube

For Indigenous Australians, equal rights and citizenship have not always translated into full participation in Australian society. All Indigenous Australians have only been counted in the census since the 1967 Referendum. Even so, State protection and welfare laws continued to control the lives of Indigenous Australians and denied them equal rights, well into the 1970's. — Jackie Huggins

The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical terms and statistical methods are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, 'opinion' polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense. — Darrell Huff

The long view of the Census bureau allows some changes that are taken for granted to be studied in more detail. Everyone knows, for example, that people get married later than they used to. — Bill Dedman

What it means to be human is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsibile, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census figures. It means knowing that life has an inside as well as an outside. And I think it means love. — Jeanette Winterson