Michael Polanyi Quotes

Knowledge consists in understanding the evidence that establishes the fact, not in the belief that it is a fact.

You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.

There is no single truth, but each of the scholarly disciplines has methods which lead one ever closer to the truth.

The most that any of us know, is the least of that which is to be known.

I have often wondered and even laughed at those who fancied that everything had been so consummately and absolutely investigated by an Aristotle or a Galen or some other mighty name, that nothing could by any possibility be added to their knowledge.

Knowledge signifies things known. Where there are no things known, there is no knowledge. Where there are no things to be known, there can be no knowledge. We have observed that every science, that is, every branch of knowledge, is compounded of certain facts, of which our sensations furnish the evidence. Where no such evidence is supplied, we are without data; we are without first premises; and when, without these, we attempt to build up a science, we do as those who raise edifices without foundations. And what do such builders construct? Castles in the air.

Whenever we proceed from the known to the unkown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding'

In spiritual matters, knowledge is dependent upon being; as we are, so we know.

But let a man know that there are things to be known, of which he is ignorant, and it is so much carved out of his domain of universal knowledge.

Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul, and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

I know nothing, because I know too much, and understand not nearly enough and never will.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

Inductive inference is the only process known to us by which essentially new knowledge comes into the world.

Knowledge being to be had only of visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge, but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is not true.

Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.

We can say that Maud'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn.

Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115

Over the years I have found one of my best strengths is my ability to recognise talent and trust them.

When you trust someone, you don't need to know everything.

The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object.

When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt.

Knowledge is the best eraser in the world for disharmony, distrust, despair, and the endless physical deficiencies of man.

I believe in order that I may understand.

It is not enough to say that we cannot know or judge because all the information is not in. The process of gathering knowledge does not lead to knowing. A child's world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions. So we draw worlds and fit them like tracings against the world about us, and crumple them when we find they do not fit and draw new ones.

Shall I tell you what knowledge is? It is to know both what one knows and what one does not know.