I see now more clearly than ever before that even our greatest troubles spring from something that is [as] admirable and sound as it is dangerous – from our impatience to better the lot of our fellows.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that our desire to help others can lead to significant challenges.
In this quote, Karl Popper reflects on the paradox of human impatience in wanting to improve the lives of others. While the intention to aid our fellow beings is noble and admirable, it can also lead to unintended consequences and complications, highlighting the complexity of altruistic actions and the potential dangers that arise from a rush to make changes for the better.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the complexities of activism and charity.
The growth of our knowledge is the result of a process closely resembling what Darwin called 'natural selection'; that is, the natural selection of hypotheses: our knowledge consists, at every moment, of those hypotheses which have shown their (comparative) fitness by surviving so far in their struggle for existence, a competitive struggle which eliminates those hypotheses which are unfit.
If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can.
No particular theory may ever be regarded as absolutely certain.... No scientific theory is sacrosanct.
The belief in a political Utopia is especially dangerous. This is possibly connected with the fact that the search for a better world, like the investigation of our environment, is (if I am correct) one of the oldest and most important of all the instincts.
A rationalist is simply someone for whom it is more important to learn than to be proved right; someone who is willing to learn from others - not by simply taking over another's opinions, but by gladly allowing others to criticize his ideas and by gladly criticizing the ideas of others
Thus science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths; neither with the collection of observations, nor with the invention of experiments, but with the critical discussion of myths, and of magical techniques and practices.
The three classic ways in which the Devil tempts us are with a threat, a promise or a seduction.
If you live long enough, sooner or later everybody you know has cancer.
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.
Let man be true and every god a liar.
Every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it.
We forget that, although each of the liberties which have been won must be defended with utmost vigour, the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedom, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self; to have faith in this self and in life.
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