It seems to me certain that more people are killed out of righteous stupidity than out of wickedness.
Use itGS4: dangers of moral zealotry; self-righteousness kills more than malice.
Quotes / Thinkers / Karl Popper
Thinker · 13 quotes
Karl Popper quotes for UPSC
13 sourced quotes by Karl Popper on democracy & freedom, science, technology & innovation, truth & wisdom, media, speech & public opinion, ethics & morality, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
Do not allow your dreams of a beautiful world to lure you away from the claims of men who suffer here and now.
Use itGS4: prioritise present suffering over grand utopian visions.
We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
— Karl PopperIntroduction
Use itLife: shape your future through action, not prediction.
... the fight against suffering must be considered a duty, while the right to care for the happiness of others must be considered a privilege confined to the close circle of their friends. ... Pain, suffering, injustice, and their prevention, these are the eternal problems of public morals, the 'agenda' of public policy ...
— Karl PopperVol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
Use itGS4: public policy's duty is to reduce suffering and injustice.
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.
— Karl PopperAs quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144
Use itEssay on utopian ideologies: promises of paradise breed tyranny.
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
— Karl PopperVol. 2, Ch. 21 "An Evaluation of the Prophecy"
Use itGS2: security vs liberty debate; only freedom secures security.
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 PopperVol. 1, Endnotes to the Chapters : Notes to the Introduction
Use itEssay on open society: questioning taboos and rational decisions.
I believe that the advance of science depends upon the free competition of thought, and thus upon freedom, and that it must come to an end if freedom is destroyed (though it may well continue for some time in some fields, especially in technology).
— Karl PopperCh. 10 "Corroboration, or How a Theory Stands up to Tests", section 85: The Path of Science, p. 279, note 2
Use itEssay: science thrives on free competition of ideas.
Our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty. Once we realize that human knowledge is fallible, we realize also that we can never be completely certain that we have not made a mistake.
— Karl PopperIn Search of a Better World (1984)
Use itEssay on scientific temper: knowledge is fallible; aim for truth, not certainty.
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 PopperObjective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (1972)
Use itInterview: beware certainty; one 'only possible' answer signals poor understanding.
For it was my master who taught me not only how very little I knew but also that any wisdom to which I might ever aspire could consist only in realizing more fully the infinity of my ignorance.
Use itInterview: humility in knowledge; wisdom is knowing how much you don't know.
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 PopperUnended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976)
Use itLife: someone will always misunderstand you; communicate clearly and move on.
There is an almost universal tendency, perhaps an inborn tendency, to suspect the good faith of a man who holds opinions that differ from our own opinions. ... It obviously endangers the freedom and the objectivity of our discussion if we attack a person instead of attacking an opinion or, more precisely, a theory.
— Karl Popper"The Importance of Critical Discussion" in On the Barricades: Religion and Free Inquiry in Conflict (1989) by Robert Basil
Use itGS4: civil discourse; attack arguments, not persons.