Polanyi’s quote

“…The example of great scientists is the light which guides all workers in science, but we must guard against being blinded by it. There has been too much talk about the flash of discovery and this has tended to obscure the fact that discoveries, however great, can only give effect to some intrinsic potentiality of the intellectual situation in which scientists find themselves…”

Michael Polanyi, in an essay titled  “My Time with X-Rays and Crystals” (1969)