Top 140 Karl Popper Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation.”

— Karl Popper

52. “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.”

— Karl Popper

53. “The defence of democracy must consist in making anti-democratic experiences too costly for those who try them; much more costly than a democratic compromise.”

— Karl Popper

54. “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.”

— Karl Popper

55. “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.”

— Karl Popper

56. “Great men may make great mistakes;.”

— Karl Popper

57. “Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.”

— Karl Popper

58. “Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer.”

— Karl Popper

59. “The moral decisions of others should be treated with respect, as long as such decisions do not conflict with the principle of tolerance.”

— Karl Popper

60. “If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men.”

— Karl Popper

61. “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.”

— Karl Popper

62. “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

63. “The Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint of society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of a few, and which is therefore likely to lead to a dictatorship.”

— Karl Popper

64. “Our aim must be to make our successive mistakes as quickly as possible. To speed up evolution.”

— Karl Popper

65. “Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now. Our fellow men have a claim to our help; no generation must be sacrificed for the sake of future generations.”

— Karl Popper

66. “Whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it.”

— Karl Popper

67. “There can be no ultimate statements science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot in principle be refuted, by falsifying some of the conclusions which can be deduced from them.”

— Karl Popper

68. “Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.”

— Karl Popper

69. “Theology, I still think, is due to lack of faith.”

— Karl Popper

70. “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

71. “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

72. “Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.”

— Karl Popper

73. “We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.”

— Karl Popper

74. “The old scientific ideal of episteme – of absolutely certain, demonstrable knowledge – has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever.”

— Karl Popper

75. “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

76. “The method of science depends on our attempts to describe the world with simple theories: theories that are complex may become untestable, even if they happen to be true. Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification-the art of discerning what we may with advantage omit.”

— Karl Popper

77. “I have insisted that we must be tolerant. But I also believe that this tolerance has its limits. We must not trust those anti-humanitarian religions which not only preach destruction but act accordingly. For if we tolerate them, then we become ourselves responsible for for their deeds.”

— Karl Popper

78. “The method of learning by trial and error – of learning from our mistakes – seems to be fundamentally the same whether it is practised by lower or by higher animals, by chimpanzees or by men of science.”

— Karl Popper

79. “The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity.”

— Karl Popper

80. “We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure.”

— Karl Popper

81. “I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme...”

— Karl Popper

82. “Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay.”

— Karl Popper

83. “The point is that, whenever we propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it. Few of us, unfortunately, practice this precept; but other people, fortunately, will supply the criticism for us if we fail to supply it ourselves.”

— Karl Popper

84. “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

85. “Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testabilty: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.”

— Karl Popper

86. “What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, not to politicize morals.”

— Karl Popper

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

— Karl Popper

88. “And it implies that if we respect truth, we must search for it by persistently searching for our errors: by indefatigable rational criticism, and self-criticism.”

— Karl Popper

89. “It is not the consciousness of man that determines his existence – rather, it is his social existence that determines his consciousness.”

— Karl Popper

90. “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

91. “We never know what we are talking about.”

— Karl Popper

92. “Propose theories which can be criticized. Think about possible decisive falsifying experiments-crucial experiments. But do not give up your theories too easily-not, at any rate, before you have critically examined your criticism.”

— Karl Popper

93. “Man, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is; yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made.”

— Karl Popper

94. “But some of these theories are so bold that they can clash with reality: they are the testable theories of science. And when they clash, then we know that there is a reality; something that can inform us that our ideas are mistaken.”

— Karl Popper

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

— Karl Popper

96. “But it is certainly not possible to insist on one hand that the formalism is complete and to insist on the other hand that its application to ‘the actual’ actually demands a step which cannot be derived from it.”

— Karl Popper

97. “Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.”

— Karl Popper

98. “Every discovery contains an irrational element or a creative intuition.”

— Karl Popper

99. “You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.”

— Karl Popper

100. “I would rather find a single causal law than be the king of Persia!”

— Karl Popper