“Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.”

Words on his grave; originally the ending of his Duma speech (24 May 1907) <br class="br">Source: Biography http://www.krugosvet.ru/articles/122/1012271/1012271a1.htm

Address delivered to the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression awards banquet, in The Globe and Mail (27 November 2004) http://www.cjfe.org/awards06/speaker_polanyi.html.

1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? — Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! — All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Variant: A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Source: Point Counter Point

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

as quoted in The Works of the Honourable James Wilson (Philadelphia: Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 106 & 103-105.

9 December 1852
Correspondence, Letters to Madame Louise Colet

in an interview with William F. Buckley Jr. , November 17, 1977
1965