John Charles Polanyi Quotations

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest.

What makes the Universal Declaration an epochal document is first of all its global impetus and secondly the breadth of its claims, a commitment to a new social contract, binding on all the Governments of the world.

Others think it the responsibility of scientists to coerce the rest of society, because they have the power that derives from special knowledge.

When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.

Under this scientific and moral pressure, the Canadian government conceded publicly that the use of these weapons in Vietnam was, in their view, a contravention of the Geneva Protocol.

Better to die in the pursuit of civilized values, we believed, than in a flight underground. We were offering a value system couched in the language of science.

The time has come to underscore the fact that our and others' rights are contingent on our willingness to assert and defend them.

The scientific and scholarly community is marked by the belief that the truth is to be found in all; none can claim it as their monopoly.

Science, it seemed, held the key to an age of ease and plenty, and for many that proved to be the case. But for still more, it did not.

The moral force that we brought to this debate derived from our membership in an international community ruled by law - albeit unwritten law.

The most exciting thing in the twentieth century is science.

It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people's experience.

That is of course flattering, since facts are incontrovertible. But it is also demeaning, since facts are meaningless. They contain no narrative.

In the late 1950s a major topic under discussion was whether Canada should acquire nuclear weapons.

It takes a trained and discerning researcher to keep the goal in sight, and to detect evidence of the creeping progress toward it.

I knew, however, that it would cost ten times what I had available in order to build a molecular beam machine. I decided to follow a byway, rather than the highway. It is a procedure I have subsequently recommended to beginning scientists in this country, where research strategy is best modelled on that used by Wolfe at the Plains of Abraham.

It is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental science the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)... despise utility. But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making of discoveries, rather than before.

The eye searches for shapes. It searches for a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Authority in science exists to be questioned, since heresy is the spring from which new ideas flow.

In education the appetite does indeed grow with eating. I have never known anyone to abandon study because they knew too much.

Individual scientists like myself - and many more conspicuous - pointed to the dangers of radioactive fallout over Canada if we were to launch nuclear weapons to intercept incoming bombers.

At the heart of science lies discovery which involves a change in worldview. Discovery in science is possible only in societies which accord their citizens the freedom to pursue the truth where it may lead and which therefore have respect for different paths to that truth.

When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves. Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.

Though neglectful of their responsibility to protect science, scientists are increasingly aware of their responsibility to society.

Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority.

Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.

Idealism is the highest form of reason.

The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.

A new sense of shared international responsibility is unmistakable in the voices of the United Nations and its agencies, and in the civil society of thousands of supra-national NGOs.

Science is a collection of stories, linking characters worthy of notice.

Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights.

Discoveries that are anticipated are seldom the most valuable. ... It's the scientist free to pilot his vessel across hidden shoals into open seas who gives the best value.

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.

Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good.

Science is an enterprise that can only flourish if it puts the truth ahead of nationality, ethnicity, class and color.

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

A wise man in China asked his gardener to plant a shrub. The gardener objected that it only flowered once in a hundred years. "In that case," said the wise man, "plant it immediately." [On the importance of fundamental research.]

The applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight.

Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts.

[Intellectual courage is] the quality that allows one to believe in one's judgement in the face of disappointment and widespread skepticism. Intellectual courage is even rarer than physical courage.

Nothing is more irredeemably irrelevant than bad science.

Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it.

If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.

Science gives us a powerful vocabulary, and it is impossible to produce a vocabulary with which one can only say nice things.

Young people ask me if this country is serious about science. They aren't thinking about the passport that they will hold, but the country that they must rely on for support and encouragement.

Reality is no less precious if it presents itself to someone else. All are discoverers, and if we disenfranchise any, all suffer.

Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal.

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.

In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.