Skip to content

History Quotes by Karl Popper

9 History quotes by Karl Popper

All History quotes Karl Popper’s page

Popper’s skeptical eye on historical narratives shines through this brief set of remarks. Each sentence reflects his commitment to falsifiability and the limits of prediction, giving a concise yet thought‑provoking glimpse into his philosophy of history.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

There is no history, only histories.

Image

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error.

Image

The history of science is everywhere speculative. It is a marvelous hiatory. It makes you proud to be a human being.

Image

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

Image

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of…

Image

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error.…

Image

Almost everyone... seems to be quite sure that the differences between the methodologies of history and of the natural sciences are vast.…

Image

“There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.…

Image

“Perhaps the most powerful cause of the breakdown of the closed society was the development of sea-communications and commerce. Close contact with…

Image

Other authors on History

More by Karl Popper

Science is not a system of certain, or -established, statements; nor is it a system which steadily advances towards a state of finality... And…

Image

“As indicated by our example, methodological nominalism is nowadays fairly generally accepted in the natural sciences. The problems of the social sciences, on the…

Image

Science is perhaps the only human activity in which errors are systematically criticized and, in time, corrected.

Image

A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but…

Image

Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And…

Image

[The aim of science is] to explain what so far has taken to be an explicans, such as a law of nature. The task…

Image

There can be no ultimate statements science: there can be no statements in science which can not be tested, and therefore none which cannot…

Image

Evolution is not a fact. Evolution doesn't even qualify as a theory or as a hypothesis. It is a metaphysical research program, and it…

Image

I am opposed to looking upon logic as a kind of game. ... One might think that it is a matter of choice or…

Image

The history of science, like the history of all human ideas, is a history of irresponsible dreams, of obstinacy, and of error.

Image

Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.

Image

There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation,

Image

We have the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should tolerate even them whenever we can do so without running a great risk;…

Image

Better our hypotheses die for our errors than ourselves.

Image

“Every time we proceed to explain some conjectural law or theory by a new conjectural theory of a higher degree of universality, we are…

Image