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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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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
Become
Tolerate
May
Luxury
Without
Whenever
Right
Allow
Great
Atheism
Even
Risk
Running
Cannot
Intolerant

More quotes by 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.
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Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
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Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
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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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I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth
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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.
Karl Popper
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No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
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With regards to political enemies Plato had a kill-and-banish principle. ... In interpreting it , modern-day Platonists are clearly disturbed by it, even as they make elaborate attempts to defend Plato.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Karl Popper
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A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
Karl Popper
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The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us.
Karl Popper
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The use of violence is justified only under a tyranny which makes reforms without violence impossible, and should have only one aim, that is, to bring about a state of affairs which makes reforms without violence possible.
Karl Popper
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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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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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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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The conspiracy theory of society... comes from abandoning god and then asking: Who is in his place
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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.
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We do not know. We can only guess.
Karl Popper