16 quotes
There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
For institutions, like levers, are needed if we want to achieve anything which goes beyond the power of our muscles. Like machines, institutions multiply our power for good or evil.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
The problem whether or not a good end justifies bad means seems to arise out of such cases as whether one should lie to a sick man in order to set his mind at rest; or whether one should keep a people in ignorance in order to make them happy; or whether one should begin a long and bloody civil war in order to establish a world of peace and beauty.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
I do not overlook the fact that there are irrationalists who love mankind, and that not all forms of irrationalism engender criminality. But I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate. (Socrates, I believe, saw something of this when he suggested that mistrust or hatred of argument is related to mistrust or hatred of man).
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)