George E. P. Box

The only way to know how a complex system will behave-after you modify it-is to modify it and see how it behaves.

— George E. P. Box

To find out what happens to a system when you interfere with it you have to interfere with it (not just passively…

— George E. P. Box

For the theory-practice iteration to work, the scientist must be, as it were, mentally ambidextrous; fascinated equally on the one hand by…

— George E. P. Box

Statisticians, like artists, have the bad habit of falling in love with their models.

— George E. P. Box

The benefits provided by worker participation are twofold. Quality is improved because of the finding and fixing of a very large number…

— George E. P. Box

The old-fashioned idea of a good manager is one who is supposed to know all the answers, can solve every problem himself,…

— George E. P. Box

Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is…

— George E. P. Box

The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific learning process.

— George E. P. Box

The management system which makes only a pretense of valuing employee involvement and encouraging employee empowerment merely breeds cynicism.

— George E. P. Box

Management must provide employees with tools that will enable them to do their jobs better, and with encouragement to use these tools.…

— George E. P. Box

Discovering the unexpected is more important than confirming the known.

— George E. P. Box

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

— George E. P. Box

...all models are approximations. Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. However, the approximate nature of the model must always…

— George E. P. Box

Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.

— George E. P. Box

Statistics is, or should be, about scientific investigation and how to do it better, but many statisticians believe it is a branch…

— George E. P. Box

One important idea is that science is a means whereby learning is achieved, not by mere theoretical speculation on the one hand,…

— George E. P. Box