Popperian Quotes & Sayings

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but I think everybody should do that. I think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker - I think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world. — Maya Angelou

It was not, as some suggest, Calvinism that made Scots hard: it was Scottish character that made Calvinism, already congenial to the national spirit, even more rock-ribbed than its Genevan counterpart. — James G. Leyburn

Howl backed into the door to shut it and leaned there in a tragic attitude. "Look at you all!" he said. "Ruin stares me in the face. I slave all day for you. And not one of you, even Calcifer, can spare time to say hello!"
Calcifer said, "I never do say hello."
"Is something wrong?" asked Sophie.
"That's better," Howl said. "Some of you are pretending to notice me at last. Yes, something is wrong. — Diana Wynne Jones

Part of the appeal was that Medawar was not only a Nobel Laureate, but he seemed like a Nobel Laureate; he was everything one thought a Nobel Laureate ought to be. If you have ever wondered why scientists like Popper, try Medawar's exposition. Actually most Popperian scientists have probably never tried reading anything but Medawar's exposition. — Richard Dawkins

You don't need to predict the future. Just choose a future
a good future, a useful future
and make the kind of prediction that will alter human emotions and reactions in such a way that the future you predicted will be brought about. Better to make a good future than predict a bad one. — Isaac Asimov

Old as carbon," Nix agreed. "And so powerful I'm working on my demigoddess badges. — Kresley Cole

You take a sound, any sound, record it and then change it's nature by a multiplicity of operations. You record it at different speeds; you play it backwards; you add it to itself over and over again. You adjust filters, echoes, acoustic qualities ... you produce a vast and subtle symphony. It's a sort of modern magic. We think there's something in it. Some musicians believe it may become an art form in its own right. — Daphne Oram

When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds. — George Horace Lorimer

The autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours. I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce. — D.H. Lawrence

Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself, you got to believe in foolish miracles. — Ozzy Osbourne

I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to. — J.K. Rowling

When challenged by a zealous Popperian to say how evolution could ever be falsified, J. B. S. Haldane famously growled: 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian. — Richard Dawkins

Every night,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'as reg'lar as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say, Come back, my child, come back! — Charles Dickens

When it comes to picking wine and cutting through the marketing smokes, bottom line is: two things really matter. First is how the grapes were farmed, and second is whether or not you like it. The rest is vastly BS. — Olivier Magny

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt. — Saint Augustine