John Charles Polanyi

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

#been #brutal #century #human #human rights

Better to die in the pursuit of civilized values, we believed, than in a flight underground. We were offering a value system couched in the language of science. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#better #civilized #couched #die #flight

For scholarship - if it is to be scholarship - requires, in addition to liberty, that the truth take precedence over all sectarian interests, including self-interest. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#including #interests #liberty #over #precedence

For science must breathe the oxygen of freedom. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#freedom #must #oxygen #science

Human dignity is better served by embracing knowledge. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#dignity #embracing #human #human dignity #knowledge

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

— John Charles Polanyi

#experience #must #other #our #own

In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy. ↗

— John Charles Polanyi

#autocracy #democracy #nation #place #taken

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

— John Charles Polanyi

#canada #discussion #late #major #nuclear

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

#canada #conspicuous #dangers #fallout #incoming

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

#civil #civil society #international #nations #new