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“It can’t happen here” is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.

Karl Popper

It is wrong to think that belief in freedom always leads to victory; we must always be prepared for it to lead to defeat. If we choose freedom, then we must be prepared to perish along with it.
KARL POPPER

Believe Choice Freedom Lost Philosophy Prepare Thinking Victory Wrong
The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity.
KARL POPPER

Future History Necessary Ourselves
Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.
KARL POPPER

Beginning Science
In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is a moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.
KARL POPPER

Crime Duty Moral Myself Philosophy Simplicity Sin
He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test and that they can be regarded as finally verified retires from the game.
KARL POPPER

Call Decision Game Himself Science
I hold that he who teaches that not reason but love should rule opens up the way for those who rule by hate.
KARL POPPER

Hate Love Myself Philosophy Teaching
And it implies that if we respect truth, we must search for it by persistently searching for our errors: by indefatigable rational criticism, and self-criticism.
KARL POPPER

Philosophy Respect Search Truth
All life is problem-solving.
KARL POPPER

Life One Liner Philosophy
Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.
KARL POPPER

Art Science Simplicity
Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer.
KARL POPPER

Fine Perfection Theory World
If you can’t say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
KARL POPPER

Quiet Science Simplicity Yourself
We all have an unscientific weakness for being always in the right, and this weakness seems to be particularly common among professional and amateur politicians.
KARL POPPER

Politics Right Science Weakness
We must regard all laws or theories as hypothetical or conjectural; that is, as guesses.
KARL POPPER

Law Philosophy Theory
Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
KARL POPPER

Deep Knowledge Necessary Philosophy
We can all participate in the heritage of man. We all can help to preserve it. And we can all make our own modest contribution to it.
KARL POPPER

Help Man Nature Ourselves
In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.
KARL POPPER

Philosophy Reality Science Speak

“It can’t happen here” is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.

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“It can’t happen here” is always wrong: a dictatorship can happen anywhere.

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