We do not know anything – this is the first. Therefore, we should be very modest – this is the second. Not to claim that we do know when we do not – this is the third. That’s the kind of attitude I’d like to popularize. There is little hope for success.

— Karl Popper

Karl Popper Quotes

All things living are in search of a better world .

— Karl Popper

No number of sightings of white swans can prove the theory that all swans are white. The sighting of just one black one may disprove it.

— Karl Popper

The survival value of intelligence is that it allows us to exterminate a bad idea, before the idea exterminates us.

— Karl Popper

It is the rule which says that the other rules of scientific procedure must be designed in such a way that they do not protect any statement in science against falsification.

— Karl Popper

We hate the very idea that our own ideas may be mistaken, so we cling dogmatically to our conjectures.

— Karl Popper

Simple statements are to be prized more highly than less simple ones because they tell us more; because their empirical content is greater; and because they are better testable.

— Karl Popper

The only way to test a hypothesis is to look for all the information that disagrees with it.

— Karl Popper

It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy.

— Karl Popper

What really makes science grow is new ideas, including false ideas.

— Karl Popper

There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical.

— Karl Popper

Historically speaking all – or very nearly all – scientific theories originate from myths.

— Karl Popper

The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being.

— Karl Popper

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

Reason like science, grows by way of mutual criticism; the only possible way of planning its growth is to develop those institutions that safeguard. the freedom of thought.

— Karl Popper

The quest for precision is analogous to the quest for certainty and both – precision and certainty are impossible to attain.

— Karl Popper

Serious rational criticism is so rare that it should be encouraged. Being too ready to defend oneself is more dangerous than being too ready to admit a mistake.

— Karl Popper

Some scientists find, or so it seems, that they get their best ideas when smoking; others by drinking coffee or whisky. Thus there is no reason why I should not admit that some may get their ideas by observing, or by repeating observations.

— Karl Popper

Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.

— 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.

— Karl Popper

Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.

— Karl Popper
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