John Charles Polanyi Quotes

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

[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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.

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

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

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

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.