Question

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable)." - Mark Twain
What does Twain mean by this statement.

Answer 1

He is basically saying to get the real story before you turn them into a lie. Basically stating that you need to know the entire story before you make it into some fairytail of lies. When someone has the facts with concrete evidence you cannot twist it into a lie, thus it is stubborn; But statistics are easily twisted because they do not have the evidence to back them up, because they are simply statistics, not facts. Idk if this works but hope it helps!