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[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.

John Charles Polanyi

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John Charles Polanyi
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More quotes by John Charles Polanyi

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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.
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Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights.
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Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it.
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The applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight.
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When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves. Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.
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The eye searches for shapes. It searches for a beginning, a middle, and an end.
John Charles Polanyi
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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
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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
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Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.
John Charles Polanyi
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It takes a trained and discerning researcher to keep the goal in sight, and to detect evidence of the creeping progress toward it.
John Charles Polanyi
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Nothing is more irredeemably irrelevant than bad science.
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Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good.
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If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.
John Charles Polanyi
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Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal.
John Charles Polanyi
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For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.
John Charles Polanyi