"All of us are sensitive to nature's beauty. It is not unreasonable that some aspects of this beauty are shared by the natural sciences." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "Beauty and the Quest for Beauty in Science", Physics Today Vol. 32 (7), [lecture] 1979)
"It is, indeed an incredible fact that what the human mind, at its deepest and most profound, perceives as beautiful finds its realization in external nature.[...] What is intelligible is also beautiful." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "Beauty and the Quest for Beauty in Science", Physics Today Vol. 32 (7), [lecture] 1979)
"The black holes of nature are the most perfect macroscopic objects there are in the universe: the only elements in their construction are our concepts of space and time." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes", 1983)
"A black hole partitions the three-dimensional space into two regions: an inner region which is bounded by a smooth two-dimensional surface called the event horizon; and an outer region, external to the event horizon, which is asymptotically flat; and it is required (as a part of the definition) that no point in the inner region can communicate with any point of the outer region. This incommunicability is guaranteed by the impossibility of any light signal, originating in the inner region, crossing the event horizon. The requirement of asymptotic flatness of the outer region is equivalent to the requirement that the black hole is isolated in space and that far from the event horizon the space-time approaches the customary space-time of terrestrial physics." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "On Stars, Their Evolution, and Their Stability",[Nobel lecture] 1983)
"The mathematical theory of black holes is a subject of immense complexity; but its study has convinced me of the basic truth of the ancient mottoes 'The simple is the seal of the true' and 'beauty is the splendor of truth.'" (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "On Stars, Their Evolution, and Their Stability",[Nobel lecture] 1983)
"Turning to the physical properties of the black holes, we can study them best by examining their reaction to external perturbations such as the incidence of waves of different sorts. Such studies reveal an analytic richness of the Kerr space-time which one could hardly have expected. This is not the occasion to elaborate on these technical matters. Let it suffice to say that contrary to every prior expectation, all the standard equations of mathematical physics can be solved exactly in the Kerr space-time. And the solutions predict a variety and range of physical phenomena which black holes must exhibit in their interaction with the world outside." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "On Stars, Their Evolution, and Their Stability",[Nobel lecture] 1983)
"In some strange way, any new fact or insight that I may have found has not seemed to me as a 'discovery' of mine, but rather something that had always been there and that I had chanced to pick up." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science", 1987)
"The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us. But there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over Kinchinjunga." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science, 1987)
"When a supremely great creative mind is kindled, it leaves a blazing trail that remains a beacon for centuries." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, "Newton and Michelangelo", Current Science Vol. 67 (7), 1994)
"This 'shuddering before the beautiful', this incredible fact that a discovery motivated by a search after the beautiful in mathematics should find its exact replica in Nature, persuades me to say that beauty is that to which the human mind responds at its deepest and most profound." (Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar)
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