Karl Popper Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error. But science is one of the very few human activities-perhaps the only one-in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected. This is why we can say that, in science, we often learn from our mistakes, and why we can speak clearly and sensibly about making progress there. In most other fields of human endeavour there is change, but rarely progress ... And in most fields we do not even know how to evaluate change.

  Karl Popper

  Dream, Mistake, Learning

  1960 Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.10.

  22 Copy quote

• Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives -- but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions -- which is a philosophical activity -- is morally as well as intellectually important.

  Karl Popper

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Character

  29 Copy quote

• 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

  Simple, Nihilism, Atoms

  11 Copy quote

• A rationalist, as I use the word, is a man who attempts to reach decisions by argument and perhaps, in certain cases, by compromise, rather than by violence. He is a man who would rather be unsuccessful in convincing another man by argument than successful in crushing him by force, by intimidation and threats, or even by persuasive propaganda.

  Karl Popper

  Crush, Successful, Men

  Karl Popper (2014). “Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”, p.557, Routledge

  9 Copy quote

• We should realize that, if [Socrates] demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was skeptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realization: how little do I know! Those who did not know this, he taught, knew nothing at all. This is the true scientific spirit.

  Karl Popper

  Mean, Men, Wisest Man

  9 Copy quote

• Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize. Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game.

  Karl Popper

  Mean, Winning, Games

  Karl Popper (2005). “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, p.280, Routledge

  41 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Decision, Authority

  Karl Popper (2012). “The Open Society and its Enemies”, p.590, Routledge

  17 Copy quote

• Nature consists of facts and of regularities, and is in itself neither moral nor immoral. It is we who impose our standards upon nature, and who in this way introduce morals into the natural world, in spite the fact that we are part of this world. We are products of nature, but nature has made us together with our power of altering the world, of foreseeing and of planning for the future, and of making far-reaching decisions for which we are morally responsible. Yet, responsibility, decisions, enter the world of nature only with us

  Karl Popper

  Responsibility, Decision, Together

  55 Copy quote

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

  Karl Popper

  Tests, Genuine, Theory

  Karl Popper (2014). “Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”, p.48, Routledge

  8 Copy quote

• A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation... It must be possible for an empirical or scientific system to be refuted by experience.

  Karl Popper

  Taken, Atheism, Consideration

  'The Logic of Scientific Discovery' (1934) ch. 1, sect. 6

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Giving Up, Fighting, May

  Karl Popper (2012). “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, p.38, Routledge

  26 Copy quote

• I don't know whether God exists or not. ... Some forms of atheism are arrogant and ignorant and should be rejected, but agnosticism—to admit that we don't know and to search—is all right. ... When I look at what I call the gift of life, I feel a gratitude which is in tune with some religious ideas of God. However, the moment I even speak of it, I am embarrassed that I may do something wrong to God in talking about God.

  Karl Popper

  Gratitude, Religious, Talking

  13 Copy quote

• The conspiracy theory of society... comes from abandoning god and then asking: "Who is in his place"

  Karl Popper

  Asking, Conspiracy, Theory

  Karl Popper (2014). “Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge”, p.204, Routledge

  9 Copy quote

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

  Karl Popper

  Mistake, Evolution, Speed

  18 Copy quote

• The Conspiracy Theory of Society... [is] a typical result of the secularization of a religious superstition. The belief in the Homeric gods whose conspiracies explain the history of the Trojan War is gone. The gods are abandoned. But their place is filled by powerful men or groups - sinister pressure groups whose wickedness is responsible for all the evils we suffer from - such as the Learned Elders of Zion, or the monopolists, or the capitalists, or the imperialists.

  Karl Popper

  Religious, Powerful, War

  "The Open Society and its Enemies: Hegel and Marx".

  8 Copy quote

• The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty and both - precision and certainty are impossible to attain.

  Karl Popper

  Quests, Impossible, Precision

  10 Copy quote

• Science is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And our guesses are guided by the unscientific, the metaphysical (though biologically explicable) faith in laws, in regularities which we can uncover-discover. Like Bacon, we might describe our own contemporary science-'the method of reasoning which men now ordinarily apply to nature'-as consisting of 'anticipations, rash and premature' and as 'prejudices'.

  Karl Popper

  Nature, Science, Men

  31 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Tolerance, Deeds

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Karl Popper

  Political, World, Kind

  The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) vol. 2, ch. 25

  8 Copy quote

• Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or 'given' base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being.

  Karl Popper

  Science, Doe, Swamps

  "The Logic of Scientific Discovery".

  36 Copy quote

• We never know what we are talking about.

  Karl Popper

  Math, Talking, Mathematical Logic

  Karl Popper (2005). “Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography”, p.26, Routledge

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Different, Facts, Theory

  9 Copy quote

• Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may seek its heavenly city in the past or in the future; it may preach 'back to nature' or 'forward to a world of love and beauty'; but its appeal is always to our emotions rather than to reason. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell - that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.

  Karl Popper

  Beautiful, Dream, Attitude

  Karl Raimund Popper (1950). “The Open Society and Its Enemies”

  20 Copy quote

• In point of fact, no conclusive disproof of a theory can ever be produced; for it is always possible to say that the experimental results are not reliable or that the discrepancies which are asserted to exist between the experimental results and the theory are only apparent and that they will disappear with the advance of our understanding. If you insist on strict proof (or strict disproof) in the empirical sciences, you will never benefit from experience, and never learn from it how wrong you are.

  Karl Popper

  Science, Understanding, Benefits

  "The Logic of Scientific Discovery".

  21 Copy quote

• What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

  Karl Popper

  Ideas, Grows, New Ideas

  6 Copy quote

Page 4 of 7

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin