39 Quotes by Michael Polanyi

Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.

Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence.

Discoveries are made by pursuing possibilities suggested by existing knowledge.

The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.

While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.

We know more than we can tell.

Personal Knowledge. The two words may seem to contradict each other: for true knowledge is deemed impersonal, universally established, objective. But the seeming contradiction is resolved by modifying the conception of knowing.

Christianity sedulously fosters, and in a sense permanently satisfies, man’s craving for mental dissatisfaction by offering him the comfort of a crucified God.