A free society is regarded as one that does not engage, on principle, in attempting to control what people find meaningful, and a totalitarian society is regarded as one that does, on principle, attempt such control. — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
“The downfall of liberty which in every case followed the success of these attacks demonstrates in hard facts what we said before: that freedom of thought is rendered pointless and must disappear wherever reason and morality are deprived of their… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography. — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
“A steady recognition that the evils which prevent the fullness of moral development are precisely the elements which are also the source of the… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
“Christianity sedulously fosters, and in a sense permanently satisfies, man's craving for mental dissatisfaction by offering him the comfort of a crucified God.” — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness. — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
“Sartre puts it, value arises simply from our choices. What we choose, we value simply because we have chosen it (and apparently we remain… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell, — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
Admittedly, the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over the lay public. It controls thereby also the process… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
“It was the merit of Gestalt psychology to make us aware of the remarkable performance involved in perceiving shapes. Take, for example, a ball… — Michael Polanyi Copy Share Image
