55 Quotes by John Charles Polanyi

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.