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The question is not how to get good people to rule THE QUESTION IS: HOW TO STOP THE POWERFUL from doing as much damage as they can to us.

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
People
Damage
Rule
Question
Stop
Powerful
Much
Good

More quotes by Karl Popper

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The more we learn about the world, and the deeper our learning, the more conscious, specific, and articulate will be our knowledge of what we do not know, our knowledge of our ignorance
Karl Popper
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There is no history, only histories.
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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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
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A theory is just a mathematical model to describe the observations.
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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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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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
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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. . . it seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Karl Popper
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What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
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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Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
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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No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
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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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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The old scientific ideal of episteme - of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge - has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.
Karl Popper
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Historically speaking all - or very nearly all - scientific theories originate from myths.
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