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Top Michael Polanyi Quotes

Browse top 19 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Michael Polanyi.

Favorite Michael Polanyi Quotes

1. "We do not accept a religion because it offers us certain rewards. The only thing that a religion can offer us is to be just what it, in itself, is: a greater meaning in ourselves, in our lives, and in our grasp of the nature of things...a religion exists for us only if, like a piece of poetry, it carries us away. It is not in any sense a 'hypothesis." ~ Michael Polanyi
2. "To try to reform all the power structures at once would leave us with no power structure to use in our project. In any case, we will be able to see that absolute moral renewal could be attempted only by an absolute power and that a tyrannous force such as this must destroy the whole moral life of man, not renew it." ~ Michael Polanyi
3. "We know more than we can tell." ~ Michael Polanyi
4. "A steady recognition that the evils which prevent the fullness of moral development are precisely the elements which are also the source of the power that gives existence to whatever moral accomplishments we see about us may eventually lead us to a tolerance we grant to the internal-combustion engine: it is noisy and smelly, and occasionally, it refuses to start, but it is what gets us to wherever we get.We must somehow learn to understand and so to tolerate- not destroy- the free society." ~ Michael Polanyi
5. "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
6. "We cannot ultimately specify the grounds (either metaphysical or logical or empirical) upon which we hold that our knowledge is true. Being committed to such grounds, dwelling in them, we are projecting ourselves to what we believe to be true from or through these grounds. We cannot therefore see what they are. We cannot look at them because we are looking with them." ~ Michael Polanyi
7. "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
8. "The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith." ~ Michael Polanyi
9. "But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography." ~ Michael Polanyi
10. "Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness." ~ Michael Polanyi
11. "I shall suggest, on the contrary, that all communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, and that all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell." ~ Michael Polanyi
12. "These maxims and the art of interpreting them may be said to constitute the premisses of science but I prefer to call them our scientific beliefs. These premisses or beliefs are embodied in a tradition, the tradition of science." ~ Michael Polanyi
13. "Admittedly, scientific authority is not distributed evenly throughout the body of scientists; some distinguished members of the profession predominate over others of a more junior standing." ~ Michael Polanyi
14. "Admittedly, the body of scientists, as a whole, does uphold the authority of science over the lay public. It controls thereby also the process by which young men are trained to become members of the scientific profession." ~ Michael Polanyi
15. "But the system of prices ruling the market not only transmits information in the light of which economic agents can mutually adjust their actions, it also provides them with an incentive to exercise economy in terms of money." ~ Michael Polanyi
16. "I hold that the propositions embodied in natural science are not derived by any definite rule from the data of experience, and that they can neither be verified nor falsified by experience according to any definite rule." ~ Michael Polanyi
17. "My title is intended to suggest that the community of scientists is organized in a way which resembles certain features of a body politic and works according to economic principles similar to those by which the production of material goods is regulated." ~ Michael Polanyi
18. "So long as we use a certain language, all questions that we can ask will have to be formulated in it and will thereby confirm the theory of the universe which is implied in the vocabulary and structure of the language." ~ Michael Polanyi
19. "It was the merit of Gestalt psychology to make us aware of the remarkable performance involved in perceiving shapes. Take, for example, a ball or an egg: we can see their shapes at a glance. Yet suppose that instead of the impression made on our eye by an aggregate of white points forming the surface of an egg, we were presented with another, logically equivalent, presentation of these points as given by a list of their spatial co-ordinate values. It would take years of labour to discover the shape inherent in this aggregate of figures - provided it could be guessed at all. The perception of the egg from the list of co-ordinate values would, in fact, be a feat rather similar in nature and measure of intellectual achievement to the discovery of the Copernican system." ~ Michael Polanyi

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Today's Quote

He always called me Daughter. It was to distinguish me from his sister Ava. I loved being called Daughter. It sounded so possessive, and to be possessed when you are a child is just a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel safe. It makes you feel loved."
Author: Ava Gardner

What Did Michael Polanyi Talk About?

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Use
Lie
Wit
Here
Ten
Scientific
Act
Hold
Ours
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Tan
Process
Ally
Belief
Cannot
Able
Old
Body
Tell

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