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
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
Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal. – 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
Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good. – 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
It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people’s experience. – John Charles Polanyi
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
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
If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people’s experience. – John Charles Polanyi
Science gives us a powerful vocabulary, and it is impossible to produce a vocabulary with which one can only say nice things. – John Charles Polanyi
Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey. – 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
Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights. – 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
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
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
In the late 1950s a major topic under discussion was whether Canada should acquire nuclear weapons. – John Charles Polanyi
Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. – 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
