87 quotes
Work for the elimination of concrete evils rather than for the realization of abstract goods. Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather aim at the elimination of concrete miseries.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
If your civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men make mistakes.
He seeks not to convince but to arouse — to challenge others to form free opinions.
On Freedom (1958)
There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness.
Utopia and Violence (1947)
There is no method of discovering a scientific theory.
Realism and the Aim of Science (1983)
What can be said can and should always be said more and more simply and clearly.
Realism and the Aim of Science (1983)
If the matter is presented clearly, it will not be hard to get people to agree that protective institutions are necessary, both on a regional and on a world-wide scale.
Next to art, or even equal to it, science – that is, producing and testing theories about the world, about reality – seems to me to be the greatest creative enterprise of which men are capable.
The World of Parmenides (2001)
The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.
On Freedom (1958)
If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, the wish to belittle them.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
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.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
From Plato to Karl Marx and beyond, the fundamental problem has always been: who should rule the state? (One of my main points will be that this problem must be replaced by a totally different one.)
Why do I think that we, the intellectuals, are able to help?
In Search of a Better World (1984)
The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
...non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
If only we would stop setting man against man — often with the best intentions — much would be gained. Nobody can say that it is impossible for us to stop doing this.
In Search of a Better World (1984)
You can choose whatever name you like for the two types of government. I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence "democracy", and the other "tyranny".
Freedom: A New Analysis (1954)
Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. (All that technology may say about ends is whether they are compatible with each other or realizable.)
The Poverty of Historicism (1957)
I believe that the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought, and thus upon freedom, and that it must come to an end if freedom is destroyed (though it may well continue for some time in some fields, especially in technology).
The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
On Freedom (1958)