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It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.

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
Science
Irrefutable
Makes
Recklessly
Truth
Quests
Men
Quest
Persistent
Possession
Critical
Knowledge

More quotes by 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.
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We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
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It is not intuitive ease I am after, but rather a point of view which is sufficiently definite to clear up some difficulties, and to be criticized in rational terms. (Bohr's complementarity cannot be so criticized, I fear it can only be accepted or denounced - perhaps as being ad hoc, or as being irrational, or as being hopelessly vague.)
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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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Criticism of my alleged views was widespread and highly successful. I have yet to meet a criticism of my views.
Karl Popper
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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
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Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.
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The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation.
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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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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[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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. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Karl Popper
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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
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There is no history, only histories.
Karl Popper
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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
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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
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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
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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
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A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
Karl Popper
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper