Top 100 Karl Popper Quotes
#1. We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
Karl Popper
#2. The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being.
Karl Popper
#3. There can be no ultimate statements science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.
Karl Popper
#4. If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
Karl Popper
#5. Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology.
Karl Popper
#6. Plato felt that a complete reconstruction of society's political program was needed.
Karl Popper
#7. Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.
Karl Popper
#9. The genuine rationalist does not think that he or anyone else is in possession of the truth; nor does he think that mere criticism as such helps us achieve new ideas. But he does think that, in the sphere of ideas, only critical discussion can help us sort the wheat from the chaff.
Karl Popper
#10. Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition.
Karl Popper
#11. A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
Karl Popper
#12. I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth
Karl Popper
#13. Our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable as it is dangerous ... our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
Karl Popper
#14. But it is certainly not possible to insist on one hand that the formalism is complete and to insist on the other hand that its application to 'the actual' actually demands a step which cannot be derived from it.
Karl Popper
#15. In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.
Karl Popper
#16. Learning to read, and to a lesser degree, to write, are of course the major events in one's intellectual development. There is nothing to compare with it, since very few people (Helen Keller is the great exception) can remember what it meant for them to learn to speak.
Karl Popper
#17. While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
Karl Popper
#18. It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper
#19. Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.
Karl Popper
#20. I would rather find a single causal law than be the king of Persia!
Karl Popper
#21. In philosophy methods are unimportant; any method is legitimate if it leads to results capable of being rationally discussed. What matters is not methods or techniques but a sensitivity to problems, and a consuming passion for them; or, as the Greeks said, the gift of wonder.
Karl Popper
#22. No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
Karl Popper
#23. The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.
Karl Popper
#24. The Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint of society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of a few, and which is therefore likely to lead to a dictatorship.
Karl Popper
#25. All nationalism or racialism is evil, and Jewish nationalism is no exception.
Karl Popper
#26. Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
Karl Popper
#27. No matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
Karl Popper
#28. The war of ideas is a Greek invention. It is one of the most important inventions ever made. Indeed, the possibility of fighting with with words and ideas instead of fighting with swords is the very basis of our civilization, and especially of all its legal and parliamentary institutions.
Karl Popper
#29. Science is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected.
Karl Popper
#30. The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty, and both should be abandoned.
Karl Popper
#31. Evolution is not a fact. Evolution doesn't even qualify as a theory or as a hypothesis. It is a metaphysical research program, and it is not really testable science.
Karl Popper
#32. We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.
Karl Popper
#33. Every solution of a problem raises new unsolved problems.
Karl Popper
#34. The point is that, whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it. Few of us, unfortunately, practice this precept; but other people, fortunately, will supply the criticism for us if we fail to supply it ourselves.
Karl Popper
#35. Definitions ... are never really needed, and rarely of any use
Karl Popper
#36. The influence (for good or ill) of Plato's work is immeasurable. Western thought, one might say, has been Platonic or anti-Platonic, but hardly ever non-Platonic.
Karl Popper
#37. Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
Karl Popper
#38. I have learned more from Hayek than from any other living thinker, except perhaps Alfred Tarski - but not even excepting Russell.
Karl Popper
#39. There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical.
Karl Popper
#40. It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Karl Popper
#41. It is the rule which says that the other rules of scientific procedure must be designed in such a way that they do not protect any statement in science against falsification.
Karl Popper
#42. Some scientists find, or so it seems, that they get their best ideas when smoking; others by drinking coffee or whisky. Thus there is no reason why I should not admit that some may get their ideas by observing, or by repeating observations.
Karl Popper
#43. Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.
Karl Popper
#44. If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.
Karl Popper
#45. The only way to test a hypothesis is to look for all the information that disagrees with it.
Karl Popper
#46. It is not possible to write clearly enough to avoid being misrepresented by people who are sufficiently determined to do so.
Karl Popper
#47. Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is; yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.
Karl Popper
#48. The fundamental thing about human languages is that they can and should be used to describe something; and this something is, somehow, the world. To be constantly and almost exclusively interested in the medium - in spectacle-cleaning - is a result of a philosophical mistake.
Karl Popper
#49. The defence of democracy must consist in making anti-democratic experiences too costly for those who try them; much more costly than a democratic compromise
Karl Popper
#50. The moral decisions of others should be treated with respect, as long as such decisions do not conflict with the principle of tolerance.
Karl Popper
#51. I have insisted that we must be tolerant. But I also believe that this tolerance has its limits. We must not trust those anti-humanitarian religions which not only preach destruction but act accordingly. For if we tolerate them, then we become ourselves responsible for for their deeds.
Karl Popper
#52. We do not know anything - this is the first. Therefore, we should be very modest - this is the second. Not to claim that we do know when we do not - this is the third. That's the kind of attitude I'd like to popularize. There is little hope for success.
Karl Popper
#53. The difference between the amoeba and Einstein is that, although both make use of the method of trial and error elimination, the amoeba dislikes erring while Einstein is intrigued by it.
Karl Popper
#54. Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known.
Karl Popper
#55. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.
Karl Popper
#56. A rational analysis of the consequences of a decision does not make the decision rational; the consequences do not determine our decision; it is always we who decide.
Karl Popper
#57. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'.
Karl Popper
#58. The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it.
Karl Popper
#59. Rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to contrary arguments and to learn from experience ... of admitting that "I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth."
Karl Popper
#60. Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement ...
Karl Popper
#61. True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Karl Popper
#62. Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.
Karl Popper
#63. No number of sightings of white swans can prove the theory that all swans are white. The sighting of just one black one may disprove it.
Karl Popper
#64. Serious rational criticism is so rare that it should be encouraged. Being too ready to defend oneself is more dangerous than being too ready to admit a mistake.
Karl Popper
#65. Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations.
Karl Popper
#66. Our aim must be to make our successive mistakes as quickly as possible. To speed up evolution.
Karl Popper
#67. The question is not how to get good people to rule; THE QUESTION IS: HOW TO STOP THE POWERFUL from doing as much damage as they can to us.
Karl Popper
#68. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
Karl Popper
#70. [ ... ] while I felt that the Marxist attitude towards their theory was not at all admirable but was typically dogmatic and had all these properties which the Marxists usually said were characteristic of the churches. So I realized fairly early that Marxism was more of a church than of a science.
Karl Popper
#71. There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation,
Karl Popper
#72. We never know what we are talking about.
Karl Popper
#73. Contrary to the outstanding work of art, outstanding theory is susceptible to improvements.
Karl Popper
#74. All things living are in search of a better world .
Karl Popper
#75. The old scientific ideal of episteme - of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge - has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.
Karl Popper
#76. The use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible.
Karl Popper
#77. The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance
Karl Popper
#78. Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
Karl Popper
#79. If we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. - In
Karl Popper
#80. Simple statements are to be prized more highly than less simple ones because they tell us more; because their empirical content is greater; and because they are better testable.
Karl Popper
#81. A theory that explains everything, explains nothing
Karl Popper
#82. The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.
Karl Popper
#83. It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.
Karl Popper
#84. I have spoken to Einstein and he admitted to me that his theory was in fact no different from the one of Parmenides.
Karl Popper
#85. I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme ...
Karl Popper
#86. I am opposed to looking upon logic as a kind of game ... One might think that it is a matter of choice or convention which logic one adopts. I disagree with this view.
Karl Popper
#87. Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success.
Karl Popper
#88. We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
Karl Popper
#89. It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.
Karl Popper
#90. No book can ever be finished. While working on it we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it
Karl Popper
#91. [Great scientists] are men of bold ideas, but highly critical of their own ideas: they try to find whether their ideas are right by trying first to find whether they are not perhaps wrong. They work with bold conjectures and severe attempts at refuting their own conjectures.
Karl Popper
#92. But some of these theories are so bold that they can clash with reality: they are the testable theories of science. And when they clash, then we know that there is a reality; something that can inform us that our ideas are mistaken.
Karl Popper
#93. Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
Karl Popper
#94. It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
Karl Popper
#95. The scientific tradition is distinguished from the pre-scientific tradition by having two layers. Like the latter, it passes on its theories; but it also passes on a critical attitude towards them.
Karl Popper
#96. The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
Karl Popper
#97. It must be possible for an empirical system to be refuted by experience.
Karl Popper
#98. The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
Karl Popper
#99. Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.
Karl Popper
#100. The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.
Karl Popper
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