Karl Popper Quotes

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship.

We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.

There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions.

We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

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.

You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy", and the other "tyranny"

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism.

Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology.

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

When I speak of reason or rationalism, all I mean is the conviction that we can learn through criticism of our mistakes and errors, especially through criticism by others, and eventually also through self-criticism.

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.

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.

If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories.

If God had wanted to put everything into the universe from the beginning, He would have created a universe without change, without organisms and evolution, and without man and man's experience of change. But he seems to have thought that a live universe with events unexpected even by Himself would be more interesting than a dead one.

Karl Popper Philosophy
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