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Who really said it

It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics

Not George Bernard Shaw — the thought is Bertrand Russell’s Bertrand Russell 1872–1970 · British philosopher, mathematician & Nobel laureate
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

George Bernard Shaw never wrote this. The idea comes from Bertrand Russell, who in his 1926 book Education and the Good Life wrote that sympathy may “go so far as to enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics.” The neat modern wording is a paraphrase that evolved over decades and, per Quote Investigator, reached this exact form only around 1994 — Shaw appears to have been substituted for Russell (Bernard for Bertrand) by 1981.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics” Popularly credited to George Bernard Shaw, but he never wrote it. The idea is Bertrand Russell's, from Education and the Good Life (1926): sympathy that can "go so far as to enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics." The exact modern wording is a later paraphrase, documented by 1994.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Bernard Shaw. 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

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Provenance

The real source

Source of the idea
Education and the Good Life
Real author
Bertrand Russell (1926)
Exact popular wording
Modern paraphrase, documented by 1994
Misattributed to
George Bernard Shaw (by 1981)

It may only go so far as sympathy with suffering which is portrayed vividly and touchingly, as in a good novel; it may, on the other hand, go so far as to enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics. This capacity for abstract sympathy is as rare as it is important.

Bertrand Russell, Education and the Good Life (1926) — the actual origin of the thought. Note how different this is from the crisp aphorism now pinned on Shaw.

Quote Investigator: the full origin trail

Provenance trail

  • Origin (1926): Bertrand Russell wrote of sympathy that could “enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics” in Education and the Good Life — verifiable verbatim in the full Project Gutenberg text.
  • Drift, then swap: Quote Investigator tracks the line being credited to Russell for years before it was reassigned to George Bernard Shaw by 1981 — likely a Bertrand/Bernard confusion.
  • Final wording (c. 1994): The exact modern sentence has no basis in Shaw’s works and is first documented around 1994, already attributed to Shaw.

The idea traces to Bertrand Russell’s Education and the Good Life (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926), which is old enough to be public domain in the United States. But the exact sentence shown here is not Russell’s verbatim wording — it is an anonymous modern paraphrase with no identifiable author, first documented (and misattributed to Shaw) around 1994, so no clean copyright status can be asserted for it.

Fact-check

How Russell became ‘Shaw’

This is a textbook magnet-name misattribution: a thoughtful line by one famous Briton drifted onto an even more quotable one.

George Bernard Shaw No basis in his work

Shaw is the name plastered across quote sites, but Quote Investigator finds no such line in his writings; the earliest Shaw credit dates only to 1981, likely a ‘Bertrand’/‘Bernard’ mix-up.

Oscar Wilde Also wrong

The line has also been pinned on Oscar Wilde, another catch-all wit — with no source in his work either, per Quote Investigator.

The genuine origin is Bertrand Russell, Education and the Good Life (1926), whose line about being “moved emotionally by statistics” you can read verbatim in the full text.

Context

Why the line resonates

Russell’s point was moral, not flattering: most people weep at one person’s suffering yet stay unmoved by a death-rate that represents thousands. He thought bridging that gap — feeling numbers as if they were faces — was a rare and vital fruit of real education.

Stripped to a one-liner and handed to Shaw, the thought became a compliment to the clever. The original was a challenge to everyone.

“This capacity for abstract sympathy is as rare as it is important.”

Explore

Filed under

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

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Go further

Dig deeper

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

Quote Investigator: origin of the statistics quotequoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative investigation: Russell origin (1926), the drift, and reassignment to Shaw by 1981.
Education and the Good Life (full text)gutenberg.org

Project Gutenberg edition of Russell’s 1926 book with the verbatim statistics passage.
Education and the Good Life (scanned original)archive.org

Internet Archive scan of the 1926 Liveright first edition.
Bertrand Russell — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotations from Russell, including his 1926 education writings.
Russell on Education and the Good Lifethemarginalian.org

Maria Popova’s overview of Russell’s 1926 book on education, character, and the aims of learning.

The real source

About Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

1872–1970 · British philosopher, mathematician & Nobel laureate

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician and social critic, co-author of Principia Mathematica and winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature. His 1926 book Education and the Good Life argued that a truly educated mind should be able to feel sympathy even for suffering it knows only through numbers.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary + investigation

Bertrand Russell, Education and the Good Life (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926). The polished popular wording is a later paraphrase, first documented and misattributed to George Bernard Shaw c. 1994; see Quote Investigator (2013).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-is-the-mark-of-a-truly-intelligent-person-to-be-moved-by

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