John Polanyi

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.

Our assessment of socio-economic worth is largely a sham. We scientists should not lend ourselves to it - though we routinely do. We should, instead, insist on applying the criterion of quality.

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

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

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