Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by Karl Popper, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring Karl Popper quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 130 Karl Popper quotes for you to read and share.
It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes. -- Karl Popper
A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others - not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others -- Karl Popper
We do not know. We can only guess. -- Karl Popper
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
Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. -- 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
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
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
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
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
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
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. -- Karl Popper
If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can. -- Karl Popper
I would rather find a single causal law than be the king of Persia! -- Karl Popper
Science is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected. -- Karl Popper
Every solution of a problem raises new unsolved problems. -- Karl Popper
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
Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement ... -- Karl Popper
[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do. -- Karl Popper
[The aim of science is] to explain what so far has taken to be an explicans, such as a law of nature. The task of empirical science constantly renews itself. We may go on forever, proceeding to explanations of a higher and higher universality ... -- Karl Popper
I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme ... -- Karl Popper
[ ... ] 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
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
The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being. -- Karl Popper
We have the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should tolerate even them whenever we can do so without running a great risk; but the risk may become so great that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury. -- Karl Popper
Propose theories which can be criticized. Think about possible decisive falsifying experiments-crucial experiments. But do not give up your theories too easily-not, at any rate, before you have critically examined your criticism. -- Karl Popper
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
[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
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
Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism; the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought -- Karl Popper
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
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
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
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
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
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
There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation, -- Karl Popper
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
It is not possible to write clearly enough to avoid being misrepresented by people who are sufficiently determined to do so. -- Karl Popper
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
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. -- Karl Popper
A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations. -- Karl Popper
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell. -- Karl Popper
With regards to political enemies Plato had a kill-and-banish principle ... In interpreting it , modern-day Platonists are clearly disturbed by it, even as they make elaborate attempts to defend Plato. -- Karl Popper
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
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
We can all participate in the heritage of man. We all can help to preserve it. And we can all make our own modest contribution to it.
We must not as for more. -- Karl Popper
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. -- 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
The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty, and both should be abandoned. -- 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 growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement. -- Karl Popper
The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. -- Karl Popper
I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth -- Karl Popper
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
We never know what we are talking about. -- Karl Popper
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
We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets. -- Karl Popper
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
All things living are in search of a better world . -- Karl Popper
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
All nationalism or racialism is evil, and Jewish nationalism is no exception. -- Karl 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
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths. -- Karl Popper
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
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
Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves. -- 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
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
My thesis is that what we call 'science' is differentiated from the older myths not by being something distinct from a myth, but by being accompanied by a second-order tradition-that of critically discussing the myth ... In a certain sense, science is myth-making just as religion is. -- Karl Popper
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
Our aim must be to make our successive mistakes as quickly as possible. To speed up evolution. -- Karl Popper
Science is most significant as one of the greatest spiritual adventures that man has yet known. -- Karl Popper
Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices. -- Karl Popper
There is no reason to believe that a definition necessarily determines the ontological status of the term defined.) -- Karl Popper
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
Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths. -- Karl Popper
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
Definitions ... are never really needed, and rarely of any use -- 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 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
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
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
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
It can't happen here is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere. -- Karl Popper
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
The only way to test a hypothesis is to look for all the information that disagrees with it. -- 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
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
It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness. -- Karl Popper
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
The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple theories: theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification-the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit. -- Karl Popper
Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition. -- Karl Popper
There is no history, only histories. -- Karl Popper
Plato felt that a complete reconstruction of society's political program was needed. -- Karl Popper
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
We hate the very idea that our own ideas may be mistaken, so we cling dogmatically to our conjectures. -- Karl Popper
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
Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay. -- Karl Popper
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude. -- Karl Popper
No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain ... No scientific theory is sacrosanct ... -- Karl Popper
The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation. -- Karl Popper
Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it. -- Karl Popper
While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal. -- Karl Popper
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
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
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
Criticism, I said, is an attempt to find the weak spots in a theory, and these, as a rule, can be found only in the more remote logical consequences which can be derived from it. It is here that purely logical reasoning plays an important part in science. -- Karl Popper
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
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
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
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
You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you. -- Karl Popper
I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'. -- 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 genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. -- Karl Popper
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
Contrary to the outstanding work of art, outstanding theory is susceptible to improvements. -- Karl Popper
Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification. -- Karl Popper
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. -- Karl Popper
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
A theory that explains everything, explains nothing -- Karl Popper
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
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
If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men. -- Karl Popper
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again. -- Karl Popper
It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood. -- Karl Popper
It must be possible for an empirical system to be refuted by experience. -- 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
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