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.

John Charles Polanyi

Categorized in : Country Science Order

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

celebration delight actors

Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it.

John Charles Polanyi

never-giving-up giving-up giving

Science exists, moreover, only as a journey toward troth. Stifle dissent and you end that journey.

John Charles Polanyi

dissent ends journey

A wise man in China asked his gardener to plant a shrub. The gardener objected that it only flowered once in a hundred years. "In that case," said the wise man, "plant it immediately." [On the importance of fundamental research.]

John Charles Polanyi

wisdom wise science

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

oppression technology rights

Even in the world of molecules the civilising influence of modest restraints is a cause for rejoicing.

John Charles Polanyi

molecules causes world

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.

John Charles Polanyi

breathe oxygen

Science is an enterprise that can only flourish if it puts the truth ahead of nationality, ethnicity, class and color.

John Charles Polanyi

ethnicity color science

Discoveries that are anticipated are seldom the most valuable. ... It's the scientist free to pilot his vessel across hidden shoals into open seas who gives the best value.

John Charles Polanyi

sea discovery science

When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves. Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.

John Charles Polanyi

human-dignity dignity humans

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

assessment economic quality

If we treasure our own experience and regard it as real, we must also treasure other people's experience.

John Charles Polanyi

treasure real people

The eye searches for shapes. It searches for a beginning, a middle, and an end.

John Charles Polanyi

shapes eye ends

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

goal sight science

Some dreamers demand that scientists only discover things that can be used for good.

John Charles Polanyi

dreamer insomnia science

Today, Academies of Science use their influence around the world in support of human rights.

John Charles Polanyi

support use rights

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

agency voice responsibility

Science is a collection of stories, linking characters worthy of notice.

John Charles Polanyi

stories character science

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.

John Charles Polanyi

freedom truth lying

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

bombers nuclear weapons