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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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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
Critical
Intelligence
Authority
Learned
Taboos
Decision
Taboo
Open
Base
Society
Extent
Men
Decisions

More quotes by 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 theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
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Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.
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The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.
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We do not know. We can only guess.
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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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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Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification.
Karl Popper
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Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.
Karl Popper
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I have insisted that we must be tolerant. But I also believe that this tolerance has its limits. We must not trust those anti-humanitarian religions which not only preach destruction but act accordingly. For if we tolerate them, then we become ourselves responsible for for their deeds.
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If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.
Karl Popper
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Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought
Karl Popper
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We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
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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While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
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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I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is [as] admirable and sound as it is dangerous – from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
Karl Popper
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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.
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