David Ogilvy did use this simile, but not this way. In Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) he wrote that marketing executives rely on research — not statistics — “as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than for illumination,” and he credited no one, because by then the saying had been in print for decades. Quote Investigator ↗ traces the image back to A. E. Housman’s 1903 preface to Manilius, where bad scholars “use MSS as drunkards use lamp-posts,” and finds the first close match of the statistics version in January 1937 — credited there to Andrew Lang, a credit QI calls problematic.
“People use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination” Not David Ogilvy. Ogilvy used the simile in Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963, p. 100) — about market research, not statistics, and without crediting anyone. Quote Investigator traces the image to A. E. Housman's 1903 preface to Manilius, and finds the first close match of the statistics version in Francis Yeats-Brown's Lancer at Large (1937), which credits Andrew Lang — a credit with no direct evidence, surfacing twenty-five years after Lang's death in 1912. · Verbatim: “gentlemen who use MSS as drunkards use lamp-posts,—not to light them on their way but to dissimulate their instability”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to David Ogilvy. Use the credit shown above instead.
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? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of A. E. Housman — English classical scholar & poet. Theme: "People use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination". 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.
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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "People use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination". 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 closest David Ogilvy ever came
Earliest documented form
A. E. Housman, preface to M. Manilii Astronomicon, Liber Primus (Grant Richards, London, 1903)
First close match
Francis Yeats-Brown, Lancer at Large (Viking Press, New York, January 1937) — footnoted to “Andrew Lang’s agreeable analogy”
What Ogilvy wrote
Confessions of an Advertising Man (Atheneum, New York, 1963), p. 100 — about research, not statistics
Popular wording
No single documented source; a later, smoothed form of the 1937 sentence
You have actually got to use judgment. (I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than for illumination.)
David Ogilvy, 1963
Transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ from page 100 of the 1963 Atheneum edition. Note what it is not: the subject is market research rather than statistics, the phrasing is “a drunkard” and “a lamp post,” and Ogilvy names no source — the saying was already twenty-six years into print circulation when he used it.
January 1937 — Francis Yeats-Brown’s Lancer at Large supplies the first close match for the statistics version, with a footnote crediting “Andrew Lang’s agreeable analogy” — as QI transcribes it ↗. Reader’s Digest carries the Lang attribution that April, and the saying spreads through Parliament, textbooks and magazines the same year.
1963 — David Ogilvy uses the simile in Confessions of an Advertising Man, aimed at market research and without attribution ↗. The book went on to sell more than a million copies ↗, which is how his name got fixed to the line.
No rights status is asserted for the popular wording, because it matches no single documented text. Of the sources in the chain: Housman’s preface to M. Manilii Astronomicon, Liber Primus was first published in 1903 and is in the public domain in the United States; the passage excerpted above, from David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Advertising Man (Atheneum, 1963), remains in copyright and is reproduced here as a short quotation for identification and comment.
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
Three claims, none of them clean
This is a saying that collects confident credits. Quote Investigator ↗ opens its investigation by listing the candidates outright: Andrew Lang, A. E. Housman, David Ogilvy, or nobody at all.
✕
The version posted on business slidesDavid Ogilvy Not his line
Ogilvy’s documented sentence, on page 100 of Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963), is about executives relying on research — “they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support rather than for illumination” — and he attributes it to no one. QI ↗ records the statistics version in print from January 1937, decades before his book.
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The credit in the standard reference booksAndrew Lang Unverified
Wikiquote ↗ traces the usual citation to a “1910 Speech” known only through Alan L. Mackay’s The Harvest of a Quiet Eye (1977). QI ↗ finds no direct evidence: the Lang credit first surfaces in 1937, twenty-five years after Lang died in 1912, and QI puts it down to imperfect memory.
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The exact wording people shareNo documented author Modern paraphrase
“People use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost” is a smoothed later form. The January 1937 text QI transcribes ↗ reads “use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts, for support rather than for illumination.”
✓Quote Investigator’s conclusion ↗: Housman can be credited with his own 1903 sentence, QI hypothesises the later statistics version evolved from it, the Lang ascription is problematic, and Ogilvy simply reached for a simile already in general circulation.
Context
Why Ogilvy's name stuck to it
Ogilvy is a plausible-sounding culprit for a reason: he really did put the simile into a book that a great many business readers actually read. Confessions of an Advertising Man appeared in 1963 and, by Wikipedia’s account, sold more than a million copies ↗. A line encountered there, in a chapter about the misuse of research, is a line you remember as his.
But Ogilvy’s target was market research, not statistics, and he offered no attribution — the mark of a man repeating something already in the air. It was: Quote Investigator ↗ documents the statistics version circulating from January 1937, through Reader’s Digest that April, into Parliament, textbooks and newspaper columns long before 1963.
Ogilvy was quoting the room, not coining a line.
What Housman actually wrote
Housman’s 1903 sentence is about textual criticism, and it is nastier than any of its descendants. As transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗, he attacked “gentlemen who use MSS as drunkards use lamp-posts,—not to light them on their way but to dissimulate their instability.”
The modern saying keeps the drunkard and the lamppost but flips the second half from concealment to support, and swaps manuscripts for statistics. That is a family of expressions evolving in circulation, not one sentence being quoted — which is exactly why no single primary source produces the wording people post today.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Alfred Edward Housman was Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge from 1911 until his death in 1936, and to the wider public the author of A Shropshire Lad. His scholarly prefaces are famous for their invective: between 1903 and 1930 he published a five-volume critical edition of the Roman poet Manilius’s Astronomicon, and used its opening preface to flay editors who cited manuscripts selectively. The drunkard-and-lamppost image is his sharpest line in that vein — aimed not at statisticians but at critics who lean on evidence instead of reading it.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Provenance chain
Earliest documented form: A. E. Housman, preface to M. Manilii Astronomicon, Liber Primus (London: Grant Richards, 1903). Earliest close match for the statistics version: Francis Yeats-Brown, Lancer at Large (New York: Viking Press, 1937), which credits “Andrew Lang’s agreeable analogy.” David Ogilvy’s research version: Confessions of an Advertising Man (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 100. Chronology per Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: People Use Statistics as a Drunk Uses a Lamppost — For Support Rather Than Illumination,” 15 January 2014.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘People use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/people-use-statistics-as-a-drunk-uses-a-lamppost-for/