Quotes from Paul Feyerabend

Rational discourse is only one way of presenting and examining an issue and by no means the best. Our new intellectuals are not aware of its limitations and of the nature of the things outside.

Rationalism... is a secularized form of the belief in the power of the word of God.

An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on).

Given any rule, however ?fundamental? or ?necessary? for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite.

The separation of state and church must be complemented by the separation of state and science, that most recent, most aggressive, and most dogmatic religious institution.

Science is an essentially anarchic enterprise.

First-world science is one science among many; by claiming to be more it ceases to be an instrument of research and turns into a (political) pressure group.

Teachers' using grades and the fear of failure mould the brains of the young until they have lost every ounce of imagination they might once have possessed.

Humane science must be adapted to the requirements of a balanced and rewarding life.

The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths.

An anarchist is like an undercover agent who plays the game of Reason in order to undercut the authority of Reason (Truth, Honesty, Justice and so on).

The withdrawal of philosophy into a professional shell of its own has had disastrous consequences. The younger generation of physicists, the Feynmans, the Schwingers, etc., may be very bright; they may be more intelligent than their predecessors, than Bohr, Einstein, Schrödinger, Boltzmann, Mach and so on. But they are uncivilized savages, they lack in philosophical depth – and this is the fault of the very same idea of professionalism which you are now defending.

Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions not before them, and an experience without theory is just as incomprehensible as is (allegedly) a theory without experience.