If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men.
There is no history, only histories.
It is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and recklessly critical quest for truth.
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.
I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
If you can’t say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
It is a myth that the success of science in our time is mainly due to the huge amounts of money that have been spent on big machines. What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.
All life is problem solving.
While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
Our aim must be to make our successive mistakes as quickly as possible. To speed up evolution.
I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme...
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 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.
We have the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should tolerate even them whenever we can do so without running a great risk; but the risk may become so great that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury.
We do not know. We can only guess.
In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.