"The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse — to challenge others to form free opinions."

“...non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.”

“I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and in Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression , while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority , and so did the second man . I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact — that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed — which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness.”

“From Plato to Karl Marx and beyond, the fundamental problem has always been: who should rule the state?”

“Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”

“Karl Popper Institute includes complete bibliography 1925-1999”

“A Skeptical Look at Karl Popper by Martin Gardner”