Chandra Quotes

“Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: "Even at this stage of my life, when I send in a paper for publication, I constantly worry whether it will be accepted. I ask myself why should I? Why should I? Why Shouldn’t I be able to spend the rest of my life reading Shakespeare? There are so many things which one would like to do, which one does not do. There are so many things which would be profitable and pleasurable to do which you don’t, and one begins to wonder at a later time, was it worth it, all this? I mean, in my own case, I felt when I was young that when one reaches the age of mid-forties or fifties and one is moderately successful, one would have a sense of personal security and assurance combined with some containment. I certainly haven’t found them. I find that very difficult to reconcile with: namely, to pursue certain goals all your life only to become doubtful of those goals at the end. I don’t know if this is a common experience for everybody or not, but certainly it’s not at all clear to me whether the single-minded pursue of science at the expense of other, personal aspects of one’s life is justifiable. Not so much for oneself, but particularly for those with whom you are associated. The person who suffers the most is, of course, one’s wife. Was one justified in imposing that kind of life on the other person?”
― Kameshwar C. Wali, Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar