38 Most Famous Karl Popper Quotes (KNOWLEDGE)

Top 10 Most Famous Karl Popper Quotes (BEST)

“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.”
Karl Popper

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. — True ignorance is not the absence of **knowledge**, but the refusal to acquire it.

The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement. — The growth of **knowledge** depends entirely upon disagreement.

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory but progress.

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude. — No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational **attitude**.

“We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
Karl Popper

Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. — Our **knowledge** can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure. — We must plan for **freedom**, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.

Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind. — Ignorance is not a simple lack of **knowledge** but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.

The question is not how to get good people to rule; the question is How to stop the powerful from doing as much damage as they can to us. — The question is not how to get good people to rule; the question is: How to stop the powerful from doing as much damage as they can to us.

9 Deep Karl Popper Quotes that Will Make You Think (WISDOM)

“Philosophy is a necessary activity because we, all of us, take a great number of things for granted, and many of these assumptions are of a philosophical character; we act on them in private life, in politics, in our work, and in every other sphere of our lives — but while some of these assumptions are no doubt true, it is likely, that more are false and some are harmful. So the critical examination of our presuppositions — which is a philosophical activity — is morally as well as intellectually important.”
Karl Popper

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets. — We may become the makers of our **fate** when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

“We should realize that, if [Socrates] demanded that the wisest men should rule, he clearly stressed that he did not mean the learned men; in fact, he was skeptical of all professional learnedness, whether it was that of the philosophers or of the learned men of his own generation, the Sophists. The wisdom he meant was of a different kind. It was simply the realization: how little do I know! Those who did not know this, he taught, knew nothing at all. This is the true scientific spirit.”
Karl Popper

While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.

“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.”
Karl Popper

No book can ever be finished. While working on it, we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it. — No book can ever be finished. While working on it, we **learn** just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it.

“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.”
Karl Popper

Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.

“It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.”
Karl Popper

9 Wise Karl Popper Quotes to Live By

“I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society.”
Karl Popper

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can. — If you can’t say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.

“Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success.”
Karl Popper

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood there will always be some who misunderstand you. — Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

“The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.”
Karl Popper

“Every intellectual has a very special responsibility. He has the privilege and the opportunity of studying. In return, he owes it to his fellow men (or ‘to society’) to represent the results of his study as simply, clearly and modestly as he can. The worst thing that intellectuals can do – the cardinal sin – is to try to set themselves up as great prophets vis-à-vis their fellow men and to impress them with puzzling philosophies. Anyone who cannot speak simply and clearly should say nothing and continue to work until he can do so.”
Karl Popper

I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth. — I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the **truth**.

10 Karl Popper Quotes on Science and Theory

“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.”
Karl Popper

Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.

A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.

“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.”
Karl Popper