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There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

— Karl Popper The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

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Vol 2, Ch. 25 "Has History any Meaning?" Variant: There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.

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History

More quotes by Karl Popper

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)

Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification — the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.

The Open Universe : An Argument for Indeterminism (1992)

Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)

All things living are in search of a better world.

In Search of a Better World (1984)

If we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmations, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories.

The Poverty of Historicism (1957)

All Karl Popper quotes →

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

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History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

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If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

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I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Karl Popper (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.