Q0281

Karl Popper

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

It is easy to obtain confirmations…for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations.
Thinker Karl Popper
School Critical Rationalism
Source Conjectures and Refutations
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Conjectures and Refutations, within the tradition of Critical Rationalism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Karl Popper's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Karl Popper. (n.d.). It is easy to obtain confirmations…for nearly every theory—if we look for confirmations. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0281

MLA: Karl Popper. “It is easy to obtain confirmations…for nearly every….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0281.

Chicago: Karl Popper. “It is easy to obtain confirmations…for nearly every….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0281.

Same thinker

More from Karl Popper

  1. We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.
  2. Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.
  3. We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.
  4. Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.

All quotations by Karl Popper

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme