Karl Popper Quotes: top 88 famous quotes about Karl Popper

Karl Popper Quotes & Sayings

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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

I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'. — Karl Popper

A theory that explains everything, explains nothing — Karl Popper

The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement. — Karl Popper

It can't happen here is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere. — Karl Popper

Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay. — Karl Popper

Great men may make great mistakes; — Karl R. Popper

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can. — Karl Popper

It is not possible to write clearly enough to avoid being misrepresented by people who are sufficiently determined to do so. — Karl Popper

We must regard all laws or theories as hypothetical or conjectural; that is, as guesses. — Karl R. Popper

Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths. — Karl Popper

What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, not to politicize morals. — Karl R. Popper

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

The Vienna Circle was empiricist and phenomenalist, Popper was a critical rationalist. — Karl R. Popper

We do not know. We can only guess. — Karl Popper

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

Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement ... — Karl Popper

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

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

[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do. — Karl Popper

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. — Karl Popper

It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes. — Karl Popper

It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy. — Karl Popper

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

The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation. — Karl Popper

There is no reason to believe that a definition necessarily determines the ontological status of the term defined.) — Karl Popper

Science is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected. — Karl Popper

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

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

Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification. — Karl Popper

It must be possible for an empirical system to be refuted by experience. — Karl Popper

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

The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. — Karl Popper

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

I conjecture that the origin of life and the origin of problems coincide. — Karl R. Popper

We never know what we are talking about. — Karl Popper

All life is problem solving — Karl R. Popper

Our aim must be to make our successive mistakes as quickly as possible. To speed up evolution. — Karl Popper

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

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

The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being. — Karl Popper

No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain ... No scientific theory is sacrosanct ... — Karl Popper

Contrary to the outstanding work of art, outstanding theory is susceptible to improvements. — Karl Popper

While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal. — Karl Popper

Taleb's hero, on the other hand, is Karl Popper, who said that you could not know with any certainty that a proposition was true; — Malcolm Gladwell

Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it. — Karl Popper

Relativism is one of the many crimes committed by intellectuals. It is a betrayal of reason and of humanity. — Karl R. Popper

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

If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men. — Karl Popper

The only way to test a hypothesis is to look for all the information that disagrees with it. — Karl Popper

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

The essential feature of dualist-interactionism is that the mind and brain are independent entities...and that they interact by quantum physics. — Karl R. Popper

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

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

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

I have learned more from Hayek than from any other living thinker, except perhaps Alfred Tarski - but not even excepting Russell. — Karl Popper

We hate the very idea that our own ideas may be mistaken, so we cling dogmatically to our conjectures. — Karl Popper

I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth — Karl Popper

Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is. — Karl R. Popper

The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty, and both should be abandoned. — Karl Popper

Theology, I still think, is due to lack of faith. — Karl R. Popper

I would rather find a single causal law than be the king of Persia! — Karl Popper

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

The reality of time and change seemed to me the crux of realism. — Karl R. Popper

History has no meaning. — Karl R. Popper

Denying realism amounts to megalomania. — Karl R. Popper

A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations. — Karl Popper

Definitions ... are never really needed, and rarely of any use — Karl Popper

I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme ... — Karl Popper

Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known. — Karl Popper

Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves. — Karl Popper

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

There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation, — Karl Popper

The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us. — Karl Popper

Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition. — Karl Popper

There is no history, only histories. — Karl Popper

I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate. — Karl R. Popper

Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. — Karl Popper

Every solution of a problem raises new unsolved problems. — Karl Popper

All things living are in search of a better world . — Karl Popper

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

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

You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you. — Karl Popper

The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. — Karl R. Popper

It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness. — Karl Popper

This is why the conflict between rationalism and irrationalism has become the most important intellectual, and perhaps even moral, issue of our time. — Karl R. Popper

All nationalism or racialism is evil, and Jewish nationalism is no exception. — Karl Popper

Plato felt that a complete reconstruction of society's political program was needed. — Karl Popper