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

Karl Popper

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Karl Popper
Age: 92 †
Born: 1902
Born: July 28
Died: 1994
Died: September 17
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Karl Raimund Popper Sir
Karl Raimund
Sir Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper
Absence
Ignorance
Knowledge
True
Refusal
Acquire

More quotes by Karl Popper

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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
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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
Karl Popper
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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
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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
Karl Popper
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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
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A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
Karl Popper
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Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Karl Popper
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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
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We do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves.
Karl Popper
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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
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Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
Karl Popper
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If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
Karl Popper
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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
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
Karl Popper
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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
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[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
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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
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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.
Karl Popper
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There is no history, only histories.
Karl Popper
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I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth
Karl Popper