Karl Popper May Quotations

If you know that things are bound to happen whatever you do, then you may feel free to give up the fight against them.

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

no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.

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

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.

It is clear that everybody interested in science must be interested in world 3 objects. A physical scientist, to start with, may be interested mainly in world 1 objects--say crystals and X-rays. But very soon he must realize how much depends on our interpretation of the facts, that is, on our theories, and so on world 3 objects. Similarly, a historian of science, or a philosopher interested in science must be largely a student of world 3 objects.

No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct...