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Top 25 Michael Polanyi Quotes (2025 Update)

Michael Polanyi Quote: “We know more than we can tell.”

1. “We know more than we can tell.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.”

2. “While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.”

3. “Personal participation is the universal principle of knowing.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Discoveries are made by pursuing possibilities suggested by existing knowledge.”

4. “Discoveries are made by pursuing possibilities suggested by existing knowledge.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.”

5. “The first thing to make clear is that scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Our reliance on the validity of a scientific conclusion depends ultimately on a judgment of coherence; and as there can exist no strict criterion for coherence, our judgment of it must always remain a qualitative, nonformal, tacit, personal judgment.”

6. “Our reliance on the validity of a scientific conclusion depends ultimately on a judgment of coherence; and as there can exist no strict criterion for coherence, our judgment of it must always remain a qualitative, nonformal, tacit, personal judgment.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Personal Knowledge. The two words may seem to contradict each other: for true knowledge is deemed impersonal, universally established, objective. But the seeming contradiction is resolved by modifying the conception of knowing.”

7. “Personal Knowledge. The two words may seem to contradict each other: for true knowledge is deemed impersonal, universally established, objective. But the seeming contradiction is resolved by modifying the conception of knowing.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

8. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry.”

9. “No inanimate object is ever fully determined by the laws of physics and chemistry.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Christianity sedulously fosters, and in a sense permanently satisfies, man’s craving for mental dissatisfaction by offering him the comfort of a crucified God.”

10. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence.”

11. “Human beings exercise responsibilities within a social setting and a framework of obligations which transcend the principle of intelligence.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “We could not, for example, arrive at a principle like that of entropy without introducing some additional principle, such as randomness, to this topography.”

12. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.”

13. “The information in DNA could no more be reduced to the chemical than could the ideas in a book be reduced to the ink and paper: something beyond physics and chemistry encoded DNA.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

14. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness.”

15. “Of course language manifests a belief only if we use its words with the implied acceptance of their appositeness.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

16. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “This difference between a probability statement on the one hand, and the probability of a statement, or the degree of belief in a statement on the other, may seem elusive, but is actually quite obvious.”

17. “This difference between a probability statement on the one hand, and the probability of a statement, or the degree of belief in a statement on the other, may seem elusive, but is actually quite obvious.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.”

18. “The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

19. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Polanyi writes that there exists unspecifiable and unarticulated knowledge among scientists that is not susceptible to language and usually is dismissed in philosophy of science.”

20. “Polanyi writes that there exists unspecifiable and unarticulated knowledge among scientists that is not susceptible to language and usually is dismissed in philosophy of science.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

21. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

22. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

23. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.”

24. “And the actual achievements of biology are explanations in terms of mechanisms founded on physics and chemistry, which is not the same thing as explanations in terms of physics and chemistry.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.”

25. “Theories of evolution must provide for the creative acts which brought such theories into existence.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.”

26. “But even physics cannot be defined from an atomic topography.”

— Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

27. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “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.”

28. “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

Michael Polanyi Quote: “In so far as a theory cannot be tested by experience – or appears not capable of being so tested – it ought to be revised so that its predictions are restricted to observable magnitudes.”

29. “In so far as a theory cannot be tested by experience – or appears not capable of being so tested – it ought to be revised so that its predictions are restricted to observable magnitudes.”

— Michael Polanyi

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