87 quotes
But science is one of the very few human activities — perhaps the only one — in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Modern positivists are apt to see more clearly that science is not a system of concepts but rather a system of statements.
Such a simple formula can, I believe, be made one of the fundamental principles (admittedly not the only one) of public policy.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
By reluctance to criticize some of it, we may help to destroy it all.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions.
Whenever a theory appears to you as the only possible one, take this as a sign that you have neither understood the theory nor the problem which it was intended to solve.
Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men.
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
My Universe : A Transcendent Reality (2011)
Nazism and Fascism are thoroughly beaten, but I must admit that their defeat does not mean that barbarism and brutality have been defeated.
Utopia and Violence (1947)
Scientists try to eliminate their false theories, they try to let them die in their stead. The believer—whether animal or man—perishes with his false beliefs.
Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject (1967)
I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know.
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.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong.
On Freedom (1958)
We should realize that from the moral point of view suffering and happiness must not be treated as symmetrical; that is to say, the promotion of happiness is in any case much less urgent than the rendering of help to those who suffer, and the attempt to prevent suffering.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true.
We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong.
Popper (1973)
You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.
Utopia and Violence (1947)
In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program.
Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976)