55 Quotes by 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.

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.