Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

"The pursuit of science is more than a technical matter; it is a way of life that includes the possibility of learning something new."

"Truth is like a vast landscape in the distance; we can point to it, but we cannot touch it."

"What is the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions, if in the end we do not want to listen?"

"The simple philosophical fact is that some objects are experienced as more beautiful than others."

"Do not proceed always on the assumption that other people are villains; try to understand their point of view."

"Science is not merely a collection of laws to be learned by students and teachers alike. It is a creation of the human mind, with its freely invented ideas and concepts."

"In my entire scientific life, extending over forty-five years, the most shattering experience has been the realization that an exact solution of Einstein's equations of general relativity, discovered by the mathematician Roy Kerr, provides the absolutes which I had only speculated about."

"The black hole of the nature of man is the accepted fact that it is impossible to know what lies beyond it."

"Dedication to work is the fundamental condition for creativity."

"In the last analysis, the truth is what the observable universe says it is."

"The moment of the truth is more important than the truth itself."

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library."

"I have always believed that astrophysics should be the most exciting of all the sciences."

"The truth is more important than the facts."

"One of the principal objects of theoretical research in any department of knowledge is to find the point of view from which the subject appears in its greatest simplicity."

"It is indeed an incredible fact that what the human mind, at its best, can comprehend by reason and marvelous institution is the events and phenomena of nature."

"The development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system by the Greeks and the invention of the experimental method during the Renaissance."

"What is most important is that science is free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead."

"The ratio between the gravitational and the electrical force between an electron and a proton is of the order of 10 to the power of minus 39."

"The existence of a mass gap in the spectrum means that the theory has a characteristic length scale."

"It is of interest to note that while some received the new theory of quanta with the same spirit as we find in the present text, others have rejected it because of its apparently superfluous complexity."

"The physical world is entirely abstract and without any concrete aspect whatsoever."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to prevent oneself from being driven to an asylum."

"An honest man can feel no shame for admitting that he has been wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

"The black hole represents the most perfect macroscopic realization of a quantum phenomenon."

"The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule."

"In the context of the problem of the stability of matter, we are concerned with the question whether the electromagnetic forces between the particles of matter can balance the collapse of the system due to gravitational attraction."

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"

"The basic cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are cocksure while the intelligent people are full of doubt."

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."