Statistics is the explanation of variation in the context of what remains unexplained. - Daniel Kaplan
Statistics is about variation. Describing and interpreting variation is a major goal of statistics. - Daniel Kaplan
And so it remains a triumph of statistical science that there are now so many diverse golems, each useful in a particular context. Viewed this way, statistics is neither mathematics nor a science, but rather a branch of engineering. -Richard McElreath
However well your data have been collected and your models have been structured and built, the conclusions drawn from statistical models are still inductive, not deductive. As such, they are not certain. Even so, they can be useful. - Daniel Kaplan
Perhaps the most common goal in statistics is to answer the question: Is the variable X (or more likely, ) associated with a variable Y, and, if so, what is the relationship and can we use it to predict Y? - Peter Bruce