“There are all kinds of sources of our knowledge; but none has authority … The fundamental mistake made by the philosophical theory of the ultimate sources of our knowledge is that it does not distinguish clearly enough between questions of origin and questions of validity.”
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
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Karl Popper 82
Austrian-British philosopher of science 1902–1994Related quotes
“Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength”
Quotes, NYU Speech (2004)
Context: Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.
What is Knowledge? (1971)
“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, pp. 117–118
The Essentials of the Art of Medicine. 1897. p 26.
“Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience.”
According to Barbara Wolff, of The Hebrew University's Albert Einstein Archives, this is not one of Einstein's identifiable quotations. (Source: paralegalpie.com http://www.paralegalpie.com/paralegalpie/2009/11/did-anybody-really-say-that.html.)
The phrase "the only source of knowledge is experience" is found in an English-language essay from 1896: "We can only be guided by what we know, and our only source of knowledge is experience" (Arthur J. Pillsbury, "The Final Word" https://books.google.com/books?id=Mw9IAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA595&dq=%22only+source", Overland Monthly, November 1896). The thought can be seen as a paraphrase of John Locke's argument from his Essay Concerning Human Understanding: "Whence has it [the Mind] all the materials of Reason and Knowledge? To this I answer, in one Word, From Experience". (Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding/Book II/Chapter I, 2.)
The phrase "information is not knowledge" is also found from the nineteenth century https://books.google.com/books?id=W2oAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA59&dq=%22information+is+not+knowledge%22.
Misattributed
Introduction "On The Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance" Section XVII, p. 30 Variant translation: I believe it is worthwhile trying to discover more about the world, even if this only teaches us how little we know. It might do us good to remember from time to time that, while differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal.
If we thus admit that there is no authority beyond the reach of criticism to be found within the whole province of our knowledge, however far we may have penetrated into the unknown, then we can retain, without risk of dogmatism, the idea that truth itself is beyond all human authority. Indeed, we are not only able to retain this idea, we must retain it. For without it there can be no objective standards of scientific inquiry, no criticism of our conjectured solutions, no groping for the unknown, and no quest for knowledge.
Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963)
"On the Harmony of Theory and Practice in Mechanics" (Jan. 3, 1856)