Karl Popper quotes - page 3

I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme - a possible framework for testable scientific theories. (Karl Popper)
It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood. View quote
Karl Popper
It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy. View quote
Karl Popper
Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? View quote
Karl Popper
What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity of humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesmen against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most - that we are all frail human beings. View quote
Karl Popper
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. View quote
Karl Popper
Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. View quote
Karl Popper
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. View quote
Karl Popper
He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions. View quote
Karl Popper
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. View quote
Karl Popper
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. (Karl Popper)
Nazism and Fascism are thoroughly beaten, but I must admit that their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have been defeated. View quote
Karl Popper
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. View quote
Karl Popper
Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them. View quote
Karl Popper
If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, the wish to belittle them. View quote
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. He is well aware that acceptance or rejection of an idea is never a purely rational matter; but he thinks that only critical discussion can give us the maturity to see an idea from more and more sides and to make a correct judgement of it. View quote
Karl Popper
By reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all. View quote
Karl Popper
A principle of induction would be a statement with the help of which we could put inductive inferences into a logically acceptable form. View quote
Karl Popper
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. View quote
Karl Popper
There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of 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. But this, I hold, is an offence against every decent conception of mankind. View quote
Karl Popper
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership. (Karl Popper)
The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. View quote
Karl Popper
Although I consider our political world to be the best of which we have any historical knowledge, we should beware of attributing this fact to democracy or to freedom. Freedom is not a supplier who delivers goods to our door. Democracy does not ensure that anything is accomplished - certainly not an economic miracle. View quote
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. View quote
Karl Popper
Those among us who are unwilling to expose their ideas to the hazard of refutation do not take part in the scientific game. View quote
Karl Popper