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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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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
Making
Costly
Must
Consist
Trying
Defence
Much
Anti
Compromise
Experiences
Democratic
Democracy

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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 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.
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[To] interpret Parmenides as a Kant before Kant ... this is exactly what we must do.
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Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
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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.
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I have spoken to Einstein and he admitted to me that his theory was in fact no different from the one of Parmenides.
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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.
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Now this principle of induction cannot be a purely logical truth like a tautology or an analytic statement. . . .
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We never know what we are talking about.
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Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
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A theory that explains everything, explains nothing
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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.
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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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no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
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But it is certainly not possible to insist on one hand that the formalism is complete and to insist on the other hand that its application to 'the actual' actually demands a step which cannot be derived from it.
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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 future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation.
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We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
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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.
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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.
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