The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Quotes

“Above all else show the data.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Allowing artist-illustrators to control the design and content of statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Constancy of design allows the viewer to focus on changes in the data rather than on changes in graphical design.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Data graphics were mainly [seen as] devices for showing the obvious to the ignorant.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“When a chart on television lies, it lies tens of millions of times over.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Allowing artist-illustrators to control... statistical graphics is almost like allowing typographers to control the content, style, and editing of prose.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Just as a good editor of prose ruthlessly prunes out unnecessary words, so a designer of statistical graphics should prune out ink...”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Occasionally designers seem to seek credit merely for possessing a new technology, rather than using it to make better designs.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“Simple things belong in tables... Graphics can give a sense of large and complex data sets that cannot be managed in any other way.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“The best graphics are about the useful and important, about life and death, about the universe. Beautiful graphics do not traffic with the trivial.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

“It is better to violate any principle than to place graceless or inelegant marks on paper.”
― Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte 2nd edition