John Polanyi

Scientists and scholars should constitute themselves as an international NGO of exceptional authority.

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.

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.

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

The scientific and scholarly community is marked by the belief that the truth is to be found in all; none can claim it as their monopoly.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Others think it the responsibility of scientists to coerce the rest of society, because they have the power that derives from special knowledge.