Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may seek its heavenly city in the past or in the future; it may preach ‘back to nature’ or ‘forward to a world of love and beauty’; but its appeal is always to our emotions rather than to reason. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell – that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.

— Karl R. Popper

Always remember that it is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood: there will always be some who misunderstand you.

— Karl R. Popper

Democracy provides the institutional framework for the reform of political institutions (other than this framework). It makes possible the reform of institutions without using violence, and thereby the use of reason in the designing of new institutions and the adjusting of old ones. It cannot provide reason. The question of the intellectual and moral standard of its citizens is to a large degree a personal problem. (The idea that this problem can be tackled, in turn, by an institutional eugenic and educational control is, I believe, mistaken ; some reasons for my belief will be given below.) It is quite wrong to blame democracy for the political shortcomings of a democratic state. We should rather blame ourselves. In a non-democratic state, the only way to achieve reasonable reforms is by the violent overthrow of the government, and the introduction of a democratic framework. Those who criticize democracy on any' moral' grounds fail to distinguish between personal and institutional problems. It rests with us to improve matters. The democratic institutions cannot improve themselves. The problem of improving them is always a problem of persons rather than of institutions.

— Karl R. Popper

Denying realism amounts to megalomania.

— Karl R. Popper

I do not believe that human lives may be made the means for satisfying an artist's desire for self-expression. We must demand, rather, that every man should be given, if he wishes, the right to model his life himself, as far as this does not interfere too much with others. Much as I may sympathize with the aesthetic impulse, I suggest that the artist might seek expression in another material. Politics, I demand, must uphold equalitarian and individualistic principles; dreams of beauty have to submit to the necessity of helping men in distress, and men who suffer injustice; and to the necessity of constructing institutions to serve such purposes.

— Karl R. Popper

I remained a socialist for several years, even after my rejection of Marxism; and if there could be such a thing as socialism combined with individual liberty, I would be a socialist still. For nothing could be better than living a modest, simple, and free life in an egalitarian society. It took some time before I recognized this as no more than a beautiful dream; that freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.

— Karl R. Popper

It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.

— Karl R. Popper

It is often asserted that, in view of the situation in quantum theory, object and subject can no longer be sharply separated. 1 To use Hitler’s words, the ‘separation of the world into an “objective outside reality”, and “us”, the self-conscious onlookers, can no longer be maintained. Object and subject become inseparable from each other’. 2 This, according to Bohr, is due to ‘the impossibility of any sharp separation between the behavior of atomic objects and the interaction with the measuring instruments which serve to define the conditions under which the phenomena appear’. 3 Hitler elaborates the point in some detail. ‘One may ask’, he writes, ‘if it is sufficient to carry out a measurement by a self-registering apparatus or whether the presence of an observer is required.’ And he arrives at the conclusion that the self-registering apparatus is insufficient, and that ‘the observer appears, as a necessary part of the whole structure, and in his full capacity as a conscious being’.

— Karl R. Popper

No book can ever be finished. While working on it, we learn just enough to find it immature the moment we turn away from it

— Karl R. Popper

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.

— Karl R. Popper