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Who really said it

In God we trust. All others must bring data

Not W. Edwards Deming — an anonymous scientific adage Unknown Author unknown · earliest documented use 1978, where it was already called a cliche
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no Deming source. The earliest instance anyone has located is a pathologist, Edwin R. Fisher, quoting it to a U.S. House subcommittee on 7 September 1978 — and he introduced it as “a well-recognized cliche in scientific circles,” explicitly taking no credit. The now-standard wording, All others must bring data, turns up unattributed in The American Statistician in 1985. The Deming credit shows up only after 1986, and neither Quote Investigator nor Wikiquote documents how it attached — they record that it did, not why.

Last verified 30 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“In God we trust. All others must bring data” Anonymous — not W. Edwards Deming. The saying was already "a well-recognized cliche in scientific circles" when pathologist Edwin R. Fisher quoted it to a U.S. House subcommittee on 7 September 1978; the wording "All others must bring data" appears unattributed in The American Statistician, August 1985. Not found in any published work of Deming's. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to W. Edwards Deming. Use the credit shown above instead.

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We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of truth, doubt and knowledge. Theme: "In God we trust. All others must bring data". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "In God we trust. All others must bring data". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The earliest documented use

Origin
Unknown — anonymous adage, no located first use
Earliest documented instance
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Tobacco, hearing of 7 September 1978, p. 5
Spoken by
Edwin R. Fisher, M.D., professor of pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine — who called it a cliche
Familiar wording first seen in
The American Statistician, August 1985 (Brian L. Joiner), unattributed
W. Edwards Deming source
None — not located in any published work

I should like to close by citing a well-recognized cliche in scientific circles. The cliche is, ‘In God we trust, others must provide data.’ 1978 hearing transcript, p. 5

Edwin R. Fisher closing his testimony to a House tobacco subcommittee on 7 September 1978 — the earliest instance Quote Investigator has located. Notice what he does with it: he labels it a cliche and takes no credit, which means the saying was already circulating before this, from a source no one has found. Note too that the wording is provide, not bring.

Quote Investigator: In God We Trust; Others Must Provide Data

How we traced it

  • The specialists have already done this one, and they agree. Quote Investigator dates the earliest known instance to Fisher’s 1978 testimony, follows the wording through 1979, 1981, 1985 and 1986, and concludes that “the saying is anonymous” with no substantive support for assigning it to Deming Quote Investigator ↗.
  • Wikiquote reaches the same verdict and files the line under Misattributed, giving the 1978 attestation and pointing at Mary Walton’s The Deming Management Method (1986), p. 96, where it appears with no attribution to Deming or anyone else Wikiquote: Deming ↗.
  • The frame is older than the data joke. Wikiquote records the saying as proverbial, a variant of “In God we trust. All others (pay) cash,” dated to at least 1877 in the U.S. Wikiquote: Statistics ↗ — and Barry Popik prints an example from the Chester, Pennsylvania Daily Times of 21 April 1877: “In God we trust, all others cash.” The data version is a professional retooling of a shop-counter gag.
  • People who know the Deming corpus have looked and come up empty. Statistician Sharon Lohr, who says she has read almost everything Deming published, has never met the line in his writings and concludes “Maybe, but I cannot find proof that he did” Lohr on statistics misquotations ↗; a Deming-focused blog reports the attribution as unclear and quotes one participant in a Deming Institute discussion saying flatly, “He never would have said that” the Deming-community view ↗.

We cannot state a rights position, because we cannot state an author. The saying was already a cliche when first recorded in 1978, so its origin sits somewhere before that with nobody’s name on it — and an unidentified author means an undetermined copyright status, not a free one. The 1978 congressional hearing in which it survives is itself a U.S. government publication, but that covers the transcript, not the adage. A nine-word adage that nobody claims is low-risk to reuse, but low risk is not clearance and we are not issuing one — and whatever you do, do not print ‘W. Edwards Deming’ underneath.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Where the Deming credit came from — and where it didn’t

The line is quoted in boardrooms, dashboards and data-science decks as Deming’s first law. It is not his. What the paper trail gives is when the credit appears, not how it arrived: no one has documented the route, and the sources below stop short of claiming one.

W. Edwards Deming Misattributed

Wikiquote files the line in its Misattributed section, recording an earliest attestation of 1978 and giving the familiar bring data wording as it stands in Mary Walton’s The Deming Management Method (1986) at p. 96, “without any attribution, to Deming or anyone else” Wikiquote ↗. Quote Investigator has a separate record of the same book: a chapter epigraph at chapter 20, “Doing It with Data”, which it transcribes as “In God we trust. All others must use data.” and cites at quote page 26 Quote Investigator ↗. The two specialists match on neither the verb nor the page, so these are two records and not one confirmed instance. What both do establish is that the 1986 appearance credits nobody: an unsigned epigraph in a Deming book is not a Deming quote, but on a page with his name at the top it reads like one.

Prof. Robert W. Hayden Denied it

The authors of The Elements of Statistical Learning footnoted their own epigraph to say the line has been widely attributed to both Deming and Robert W. Hayden, that “Professor Hayden told us that he can claim no credit for this quote,” and that they could find no data confirming Deming said it either the footnote in full ↗.

‘must provide data’ became ‘must bring data’ Reworded

The version everyone quotes is not the version first recorded. Quote Investigator’s sequence runs others must provide data (1978), all others have data (1979), All Others Must Have Data (1981), and only then All others must bring data, in Brian L. Joiner’s August 1985 article in The American Statistician — in quotation marks, with no author named the variant chronology ↗.

Peter Mears & Frank Voehl, Team Building (1994) Unverified

A management textbook published after Deming’s death reports that “In his apartment in New York City, a sign above his study door read, ‘In God we trust; all others must bring data.’” No source is given for the sign. Popik prints the passage without endorsing it, but he is not a witness for anonymity either: his own summary takes Deming’s use of the line as given and queries only the timing — “it’s not clear when he first said it or even if he popularized it” the 1994 citation ↗. The anonymity verdict on this page rests on Quote Investigator (“the saying is anonymous”) and Wikiquote’s Misattributed filing, not on him. And a sign on a door would show he liked the line, not that he wrote it.

The saying is anonymous. It was already a cliche when first recorded in 1978, the familiar wording appears in The American Statistician in 1985 with no author attached, and no one has produced it from anything Deming published Quote Investigator’s conclusion ↗.

Context

A demand for evidence with no evidence behind it

The joke writes itself, and the authors of The Elements of Statistical Learning got there first. They used the line as an epigraph, credited it to Deming, and then had to append a footnote admitting that it is widely attributed to both Deming and Professor Robert W. Hayden, that Hayden told them he could claim no credit, and that — ironically — “we could find no ‘data’ confirming that Deming actually said this” the footnote, quoted in full ↗. A slogan insisting on documentation has never produced its own.

Deming is a plausible speaker, which is exactly the problem: plausibility is how misattributions travel. His real writing on measurement is more interesting than the slogan and pulls slightly against it — Out of the Crisis (p. 121) endorses Lloyd S. Nelson’s principle that the most important figures management needs are unknown or unknowable yet must still be reckoned with, and The New Economics (p. 35) calls it “a costly myth” to think you cannot manage what you cannot measure both passages, with pages ↗. A man who wrote that would not have been the one demanding everyone arrive with a spreadsheet.

we could find no ‘data’ confirming that Deming actually said this

The paper trail, 1877 to 1994

The skeleton is an old shop-counter joke. Wikiquote records the saying as proverbial, a variant of “In God we trust. All others (pay) cash,” which dates to at least 1877 in the U.S. Wikiquote: Statistics ↗; Barry Popik prints an 1877 example from the Chester, Pennsylvania Daily Times of 21 April: “In God we trust, all others cash.” Popik’s chronology ↗

The data version then drifts through the sciences before it settles. Quote Investigator’s sequence runs: others must provide data (Edwin R. Fisher, 1978), all others have data (Bernard Fisher, Washington Post, 1979), All Others Must Have Data (Cecil R. Reynolds, conference address title, 1981), then the familiar All others must bring data in Brian L. Joiner’s 1985 article — in quotation marks, with no author named Quote Investigator ↗

Deming’s name arrives afterwards. In 1986 the saying opened chapter 20 of Mary Walton’s The Deming Management Method with no credit given to anyone; that same year an American Gas Association speaker used it while pointedly separating it from Deming — “I know Dr. Deming doesn’t like slogans, but we now use the following slogan” — and by 1994 a management textbook was reporting a sign bearing the words above Deming’s study door, after his death and with no source given the 1986 and 1994 citations ↗

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Doubt Knowledge

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Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: In God We Trust; Others Must Provide Dataquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Traces the earliest known use to a 1978 House hearing, walks the wording variants through 1979, 1981, 1985 and 1986, and concludes the saying is anonymous with no substantive support for Deming.
W. Edwards Deming (Misattributed section)en.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote files the line under Misattributed, giving the 1978 earliest attestation and the Mary Walton (1986) p. 96 no-attribution detail. Also the source for Deming’s dates and description.
Statistics — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Records the saying as proverbial and identifies its parent joke, “In God we trust. All others (pay) cash,” dated to at least 1877 in the U.S.
‘In God we trust. All others must bring data’ — The Big Applebarrypopik.com

Barry Popik’s citation file: the 1877 cash version, Fisher’s 1978 words verbatim, the 1986 American Gas Association slogan, and the 1994 claim about a sign above Deming’s study door.
No data on the need to bring datajohndcook.com

Reproduces the footnote from The Elements of Statistical Learning: the quote is credited to both Deming and Robert W. Hayden, Hayden disclaims it, and the authors could find no data confirming Deming said it.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Misquotationssharonlohr.com

Statistician Sharon Lohr, who says she has read almost everything Deming published, reports never encountering the line in his writings: “Maybe, but I cannot find proof that he did.”

The name it gets pinned to

Why it gets pinned on Deming

W. Edwards Deming

1900–1993 · American statistician, professor and quality-management consultant

William Edwards Deming was the statistician who taught postwar industry to manage by measurement, and Wikiquote describes him as an American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer and consultant known for his work in quality management. That makes him the natural magnet for any crisp aphorism about evidence beating opinion — his name settles the argument the line is trying to win. But his actual position was subtler than the slogan: in Out of the Crisis he endorsed Lloyd Nelson’s point that the most important figures for management are unknown or unknowable, and in The New Economics he called it “a costly myth” to suppose that what you cannot measure you cannot manage.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Anonymous; earliest documented 1978

Author unknown. Earliest documented use: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Tobacco, hearing of 7 September 1978, 95th Cong., 5 — Edwin R. Fisher, M.D., quoting it as “a well-recognized cliche in scientific circles.” The standard modern wording appears, unattributed, in Brian L. Joiner, “The Key Role of Statisticians in the Transformation of North American Industry,” The American Statistician 39, no. 3 (August 1985): 224, quote p. 226. Not located in any published work of W. Edwards Deming.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘In God we trust. All others must bring data’?” Last verified 30 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/in-god-we-trust-all-others-must-bring-data/

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