Quote

We know a great deal, but our ignorance is sobering and boundless. With each step forward, with each problem which we solve, we not only discover new and unsolved problems, but we also discover that where we believed that we were standing on firm and safe ground, all things are, in truth, insecure and in a state of flux.

Karl Popper

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Also
Standing
Firm
Problem
Safe
Believed
Deal
Discover
States
Problems
Solve
Sobering
Great
Deals
Ground
Unsolved
Things
Steps
Forward
Flux
State
Step
Boundless
Truth
Ignorance
Insecure

More quotes by Karl Popper

Image
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
Image
The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to extinct a bad idea, before the idea extincts us.
Karl Popper
Image
We do not know. We can only guess.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
Karl Popper
Image
Good tests kill flawed theories we remain alive to guess again.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is no history, only histories.
Karl Popper
Image
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
Karl Popper
Image
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
Image
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Karl Popper
Image
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