Life's Pleasures Quote by Romano Prodi

A clean suit can hide a sloppy mind, and Romano Prodi skewers that mismatch with the kind of line politicians usually reserve for their opponents. “He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts” isn’t just a joke; it’s an accusation about a whole style of governance: numbers as props, not proofs. The image does heavy work. A lamp-post is meant to light the street, but the drunk turns it into a crutch. In Prodi’s framing, data is designed to illuminate reality, yet the speaker’s target grabs it only to stay upright in public - to look steady, credible, “evidence-based” - while remaining intellectually unmoored.

The subtext is sharper than the punchline: the problem isn’t ignorance of statistics but bad faith. It implies cherry-picking, selective quoting, and weaponized graphs that function like set dressing. The person Prodi’s imagining doesn’t need truth; he needs a number-shaped object to lean on when challenged. That’s why the second clause lands: “support” signals social reinforcement, coalition-building, media soundbites, and parliamentary theater. “Illumination” signals scrutiny, accountability, and the willingness to be surprised by what the data actually reveals.

As a statesman who operated in Europe’s technocratic era - when expertise and metrics were increasingly central to policy legitimacy - Prodi’s line reads as an insider’s warning. It’s aimed at the creeping cynicism of “stats speak”: the performance of rationality without the discipline of it. The wit makes the critique memorable; the metaphor makes it devastating.