Since we can never know anything for sure, it is simply not worth searching for certainty; but it is well worth searching for truth; and we do this chiefly by searching for mistakes, so that we have to correct them.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
“Knowledge and the Shaping of Reality,” lecture, Alpbach (Aug 1982)
(Source)
Reprinted in In Search of a Better World, ch. 1 (1994).
Quotations by:
Popper, Karl
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.
Nationalism appeals to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility.
What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, and not to politicize morals.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
The Open Society and Its Enemies, ch. 6 (1945)
Full text.
What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, and not to politicize morals.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1 “The Spell of Plato”, ch. 6 “Totalitarian Justice” (1945)
(Source)