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No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.

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
Scientific
Absolutely
Theory
Particular
Certain
May
Sacrosanct
Ever
Regarded

More quotes by 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 is no history, only histories.
Karl Popper
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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
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It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes.
Karl Popper
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There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.
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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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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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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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
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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
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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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.)
Karl Popper
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Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.
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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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
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It is wrong and dangerous to extol freedom by telling people that they will certainly be all right once they are free. 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
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We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Karl Popper
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A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation... It must be possible for an empirical or scientific system to be refuted by experience.
Karl Popper
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper
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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