John Polanyi

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

“The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Though we explore in a culturally-conditioned way, the reality we sketch is universal.”

“The most exciting thing in the twentieth century is science.”

“In the late 1950s a major topic under discussion was whether Canada should acquire nuclear weapons.”

“The applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight.”

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

“Though neglectful of their responsibility to protect science, scientists are increasingly aware of their responsibility to society.”

“Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts.”

“Science never gives up searching for truth, since it never claims to have achieved it. It is civilizing because it puts truth ahead of all else, including personal interests.”

“It is this, at its most basic, that makes science a humane pursuit; it acknowledges the commonality of people's experience.”

“Science gives us a powerful vocabulary, and it is impossible to produce a vocabulary with which one can only say nice things.”

“When, as we must often do, we fear science, we really fear ourselves.”

“For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom.”

“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.”

“Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge.”

“The time has come to underscore the fact that our and others' rights are contingent on our willingness to assert and defend them.”

“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.”