Statistics are like women; mirrors of purest virtue and truth, or like whores to use as one pleases.

Billroth’s aphorism contrasts two opposed uses of statistics: as an honest instrument that can reflect reality with clarity, or as a pliable tool that can be made to “serve” a desired conclusion. The point is less about numbers themselves than about the ethics and competence of the person wielding them—choices in data selection, definitions, and presentation can either illuminate truth or manufacture persuasion. The sexualized metaphor is characteristic of a polemical, 19th‑century rhetorical register, but its underlying warning remains recognizable: statistical results are not self-interpreting, and methodological rigor and intellectual honesty determine whether they inform or mislead.