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Karl Popper

Karl Popper Quotes

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Famous Karl Popper Quotes

“To give a causal explanation of an event means to deduce a statement which describes it, using as premises of the deduction one or more universal laws, together with certain singular statements, the initial conditions ... We have thus two different kinds of statement, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete causal explanation.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell.”

LoveKindWarSoulBodyRememberReligiousHellFireAliveEternalEternityIntentionSavingBurnedGentlenessReligious WarsSaving Souls
Book:Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
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“When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.”

PeopleKnowsPersonsMatterRealityPastImaginationSituationImagineProjectsPrejudiceScreensSmokeProjectionWithdrawingNew SituationsSituations In LifeDispelling
Author:Karl Popper
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“It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one's partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion wrighteous stupidityill be the more fruitful the more the partner's backgrounds differ.”

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Book:In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years
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“Psychologism is, I believe, correct only in so far as it insists upon what may be called 'methodological individualism' as opposed to 'methodological collectivism'; it rightly insists that the 'behaviour' and the 'actions' of collectives, such as states or social groups, must be reduced to the behaviour and to the actions of human individuals. But the belief that the choice of such an individualist method implies the choice of a psychological method is mistaken.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“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.”

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Book:In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years
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“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.”

MadeImportantIdeasWarFightingPossibilityCivilizationBasesInstitutionsInventionGreekParliamentary
Book:Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
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“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.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“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. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse - to challenge others to form free opinions.”

WantMayDoeImportantMatterFormValuesChallengesOpinionIntellectualEnlightenmentCriticismIndependenceRationalContradictionConvinceThinkerInvitesEnlightenment ThinkersFree Opinion
Author:Karl Popper
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“Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. He has the privilege and the opportunity of studying. In return, he owes it to his fellow men (or 'to society') to represent the results of his study as simply, clearly and modestly as he can. The worst thing that intellectuals can do - the cardinal sin - is to try to set themselves up as great prophets vis-à-vis their fellow men and to impress them with puzzling philosophies. Anyone who cannot speak simply and clearly should say nothing and continue to work until he can do so.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“Astrologers were greatly impressed, and misled, by what they believed to be confirming evidence-so much so that they were quite unimpressed by any unfavorable evidence. Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophecies sufficiently vague they were able to explain away anything that might have been a refutation of the theory had the theory and the prophecies been more precise. In order to escape falsification they destroyed the testability of their theory. It is a typical soothsayer's trick to predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: that they become irrefutable.”

Has BeensMightAbleOrderFailingTheoryEvidenceTricksDestroyedInterpretationImpressedTypicalProphecyVaguePrecisePredictionsMight Have BeenMisledRefutationFalsification
Author:Karl Popper
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“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.”

IfsWorldImportantFactsPoliticalBeliefEnvironmentDangerousDangerInstinctConnectedInvestigationOur EnvironmentUtopia
Book:In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years
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“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.”

MenWarSufferingEvilBeliefReligiousResultsPowerfulGoneGroupsTheoryPressureResponsibleFilledLibertarianAbandonedConspiracyCapitalistSuperstitionsTypicalWickednessEldersSinisterConspiracy TheoryPowerful ManZionTrojansTrojan WarPressure Groups
Author:Karl Popper
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“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.”

MenWorldHelpingDreamBeautifulSufferingGenerationsClaimsFellowsSakeYour DreamsFellow ManFuture GenerationHere And NowLureBeautiful World
Book:Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
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“Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.”

ShouldMadeFactsHappinessFightingLeftPrinciplesPolicyIncreaseAimMiseryPhilosopherExcuseInner PeaceRealisticInitiativeDictatorshipModestBenevolentPublic Policy
Book:Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
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“I think that there is only one way to science - or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children, for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.”

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Author:Karl Popper
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“Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help? Simply because we, the intellectuals, have done the most terrible harm for thousands of years. Mass murder in the name of an idea, a doctrine, a theory, a religion - that is all "our" doing, "our" invention: the invention of the intellectuals. If only we would stop setting man against man - often with the best intentions - much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.”

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Book:In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years
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“A system such as classical mechanics may be 'scientific' to any degree you like; but those who uphold it dogmatically - believing, perhaps, that it is their business to defend such a successful system against criticism as long as it is not conclusively disproved - are adopting the very reverse of that critical attitude which in my view is the proper one for the scientist.”

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Book:The Logic of Scientific Discovery
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