Karl Popper Quotes

It feels great to have your own views reflected back to you, and you feel so right, but actually it's very dangerous. Because to make good decisions, you need to have a clear view of what all the options are.

My point is that perceptual bias can affect nut jobs and scientists alike. If we hold too rigidly to what we think we know, we ignore or avoid evidence of anything that might change our mind.

Political thinking consists in deciding upon the conclusion first and then finding good arguments for it. An open mind is considered irresponsible.

Just because something doesn't confirm your existing beliefs does not mean it's a hoax.

If there's something you really want to believe, that's what you should question the most.

Once you train an audience to look for significance, they start to find it everywhere.

You should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it. We call that 'Diax's Rake.

There are many different ways to look at a situation, and it's important to look at things the way they are.

Nothing limits intelligence more than ignorance; nothing fosters ignorance more than one's own opinions; nothing strengthens opinions more than refusing to look at reality.

The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made.

When we are in the grasp of illusion - or, for that matter, whenever we have a new idea - instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and it presents a major impediment of our ability to break free from the misinterpretation of randomness.

The paradigm helps a person identify the thought system, which is almost always false, that is behind the rationale for the continuation of excuses. It helps them really look at excuses from an objective point of view and realize that everything they've been thinking is just as likely to be not true as it is to be true.

More than anything else, what differentiates people who live up to their potential from those who don't is a willingness to look at themselves and others objectively

I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them.

Almost all the other fellows do not look from the facts to the theory but from the theory to the facts; they cannot get out of the network of already accepted concepts; instead, comically, they only wriggle about inside.

No matter how bad you think something is, when you look into it, it's always worse.

You must look at facts, because they look at you.

Preconceived ideas are like searchlights which illumine the path of the experimenter and serve him as a guide to interrogate nature. They become a danger only if he transforms them into fixed ideas-this is why I should like to see these profound words inscribed on the threshold of all the temples of science: 'The greatest derangement of the mind is to believe in something because one wishes it to be so.'

It is amazing that when someone else spouts the nonsense you yourself believe you can readily perceive it as nonsense

Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?

In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t.

A simplistic view of scientific evidence risks a path of too much faith followed by too much disillusionment.

RATIONAL, adj. Devoid of all delusions save those of observation, experience and reflection.

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.

But whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.