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Who really said it

Without data, you're just another person with an opinion

Not a documented Deming quote — an unsourced management slogan No verified speaker Credited to W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993), American statistician — but no source has ever been produced
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

No book page, seminar transcript, paper or recording has ever been produced for this wording. Wikiquote does carry the line on its Deming page, but the single reference attached to it is a March 2016 Forbes column that quotes the line as Deming’s and cites nothing at all — and the W. Edwards Deming Institute’s own sourced quote database does not include it.

Last verified 7 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Without data, you're just another person with an opinion” Unverified. "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion" has never been traced to W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) — no book page, transcript or recording has been produced, and the line is absent from the W. Edwards Deming Institute's own quote database. Its only Wikiquote citation is a Forbes column from 2016 that gives no source. — 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, knowledge and doubt. Theme: "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion". 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

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Provenance

What the record shows

Popularly credited to
W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993)
Primary source
None located — no book page, transcript or recording
Deming Institute quote database
Does not carry the line
Closest specialist research
Quote Origin: In God We Trust; Others Must Provide Data

Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. Circulating wording — no documented original

There is no original context to quote: no occasion, page or transcript has ever been produced. The wording is unstable in circulation, too — the 2016 Forbes column that Wikiquote cites as its source actually prints it as “Without data you’re just a person with an opinion,” without the word another.

Quote Investigator on the data-versus-faith adage

The paper trail

  • Deming’s own institute publishes a sourced quote database ↗, with book titles and page numbers attached to entries — and this line is not in it. A site search of deming.org for the phrase ↗ returns no results.
  • Wikiquote does list the sentence on its W. Edwards Deming page ↗, but the single reference attached to it is a 15 March 2016 Forbes column by Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn — “Without An Opinion, You’re Just Another Person With Data” ↗ — which calls Deming the “patron saint of the quality movement” and cites nothing. The trail stops there.
  • The nearest specialist research on this family of sayings is Quote Investigator’s study of “In God we trust; others must provide data” ↗. It puts the first known instance in pathologist Edwin R. Fisher’s 7 September 1978 testimony to a U.S. House subcommittee — where Fisher called it a “well-recognized cliché” — concludes the saying is anonymous, and adds that “there is no substantive support for assigning the saying to that famous engineer.”
  • The slogan also sits badly with Deming’s actual doctrine. His institute publishes a correction titled “Myth: If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage It” ↗, quoting him: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.” Wikipedia ↗ lists “Running a company on visible figures alone” among his Seven Deadly Diseases.

Because no source work has ever been identified for this wording, there is nothing whose first-publication date could be checked and no copyright status can honestly be asserted. Deming’s own books — Out of the Crisis (1986) and The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993) — are in copyright, but neither has been shown to contain this sentence.

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 this one goes wrong

This is a slogan in search of a speaker. It is quoted in boardrooms, journal editorials and consulting decks as Deming’s, but every citation chain runs into a modern secondary source and stops there.

W. Edwards Deming unsourced

Credited to him almost universally, and sourced to him nowhere. His own institute’s quote database ↗, which normally attaches a book and page number to each entry, does not include the line, and a search of deming.org for the phrase ↗ returns nothing.

A March 2016 Forbes column circular

Wikiquote’s sole reference for the line is Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn’s “Without An Opinion, You’re Just Another Person With Data” ↗, published decades after Deming’s death. It calls him the “patron saint of the quality movement,” prints the line as “Without data you’re just a person with an opinion,” and gives no source at all.

“In God we trust; others must provide data” anonymous

Also pinned on Deming, and also not his. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the first known instance in 1978 and concludes the saying is anonymous, while Wikiquote ↗ files it under Misattributed on its Deming page.

Not a figures-only man irony

Wikipedia ↗ lists “Running a company on visible figures alone” among his Seven Deadly Diseases, and his institute calls the related slogan “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” a misattribution ↗, quoting him: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”

Nobody has documented who first said it. What is documented is the adjacent adage: Quote Investigator ↗ traces “In God we trust; others must provide data” to a congressional hearing on 7 September 1978, where the speaker himself called it an already-familiar cliché, and concludes the saying is anonymous.

Context

Why this one travels

The line is perfectly built for the room it gets used in. It is short, it flatters the person saying it, and it ends an argument rather than opening one — which is precisely why it needs a famous statistician’s name behind it. Deming is the obvious candidate: the American who taught statistical quality control to post-war Japanese industry, and whose name is on the Deming Prize ↗, established by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers in December 1950.

The irony is that the real Deming was far more careful about numbers than the slogan lets on. He put running a company on visible figures alone on his list of deadly diseases, and his institute has had to publish a correction explaining that he called “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” a costly myth. A line that makes data the price of admission to having an opinion is not obviously his idea, let alone his sentence.

A slogan that ends arguments, attached to a man who spent his career complicating them.

The documented cousin: “In God we trust; all others must bring data”

The saying most often quoted alongside this one does have a paper trail. Barry Popik’s antedating file ↗ lays out the family it grew from — “In God we trust, all others cash” in the Chester (PA) Daily Times of 21 April 1877, then the data versions from the late 1970s onward.

Quote Investigator ↗ puts the first known data version on 7 September 1978, when pathologist Edwin R. Fisher told a U.S. House subcommittee “In God we trust, others must provide data” and himself called it a well-recognised cliché. It later appears in Mary Walton’s 1986 book The Deming Management Method — the book that set the phrase down beside Deming’s name — where, as Wikiquote records ↗, it sits on page 96 without any attribution, to Deming or to anyone else. That is roughly how these things get pinned on a person: proximity, then repetition.

Explore

Filed under

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

Truth Knowledge Doubt

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

Traces the adjacent data adage to a 1978 congressional hearing, concludes it is anonymous, and finds no substantive support for crediting Deming.
Wikiquote: W. Edwards Demingen.wikiquote.org

Carries this line citing only a 2016 Forbes column, and lists “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” under Misattributed.
Barry Popik: In God we trust. All others must bring databarrypopik.com

Antedating file running from the 1877 “all others cash” joke through the 1978 and 1980s data versions.
The W. Edwards Deming Institute quote databasedeming.org

The official sourced collection of Deming quotations, with books and page numbers attached — and without this line.
Deming Institute: Myth — If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Manage Itdeming.org

The institute correcting a related misattribution and quoting what Deming actually wrote about measurement.
Wikipedia: W. Edwards Demingen.wikipedia.org

Biography, the December 1950 Deming Prize, and the Seven Deadly Diseases — including “Running a company on visible figures alone.”

The man it’s pinned on

W. Edwards Deming

W. Edwards Deming

1900–1993 · American statistician & management consultant

Born in Sioux City, Iowa on 14 October 1900 and dead in Washington, D.C. on 20 December 1993, W. Edwards Deming was a statistician and consultant whose teaching of statistical quality control to post-war Japanese industry is widely credited with helping drive that country’s manufacturing rise; the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers established the Deming Prize in his honour in December 1950. His major books are Out of the Crisis (1986) and The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993). He is also, awkwardly for this slogan, the man who put running a company on visible figures alone on his list of the Seven Deadly Diseases of management.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

No documented source

No primary source located. The wording is credited to W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) without citation; the only reference Wikiquote attaches to it is Milo Jones and Philippe Silberzahn, “Without An Opinion, You’re Just Another Person With Data,” Forbes, 15 March 2016, which itself gives no source. For the closely related adage, see Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: In God We Trust; Others Must Provide Data,” 29 December 2017, which reports the first known instance as Edwin R. Fisher’s testimony to a U.S. House subcommittee on 7 September 1978 and concludes the saying is anonymous.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Without data, you're just another person with an opinion’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/without-data-youre-just-another-person-with-an-opinion/

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