John Charles Polanyi Quotes & Sayings

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy. — John Charles Polanyi

The eye searches for shapes. It searches for a beginning, a middle, and an end. — John Charles Polanyi

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.] — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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

When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves. — John Charles Polanyi

[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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

Nothing is more irredeemably irrelevant than bad science. — John Charles Polanyi

The most exciting thing in the twentieth century is science. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom. — John Charles Polanyi

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

Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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. — John Charles Polanyi

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge. — John Charles Polanyi

Science is a collection of stories, linking characters worthy of notice. — John Charles Polanyi

Idealism is the highest form of reason. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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. — John Charles Polanyi

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

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