Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again. |
It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood. |
No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude. |
Our civilization...has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth - the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man. |
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. |
Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle / the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative. |
Piecemeal social engineering resembles physical engineering in regarding the ends as beyond the province of technology. |
Science may be described as the art of systematic over-simplification. |
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths |
There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world. |
Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell. |
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. |
We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell |
We have become makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets. |
We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure |