Sir C. V. Raman

“There is no Heaven, no Swarga, no Hell, no rebirth, no reincarnation and no immortality. The only thing that is true is that a man is born, he lives and he dies. Therefore, he should live his life properly.”

“Look at the resplendent colours on the soap bubbles! Why is the sea blue? What makes diamond glitter! Ask the right questions, and nature will open the doors to her secrets”

“The most important, the most fundamental and the deepest investigations are those that affect human life and activities most profoundly.”

“Only those scientists who have laboured, not with the aim of producing this or that, but with the sole desire to advance knowledge ultimately prove to be the greatest benefactors of humanity.”

“I can assert with out fear of contradiction that quality of the Indian mind is equal to the quality of any Teutonic, Nordic, or Anglo-Saxon mind.”

“Science… Is a fusion of man’s aesthetic and intellectual functions devoted to the representations of nature. It is therefore the highest form of creative art.”

“Women have one quality--the quality of devotion. It is one of the most important passports to success in science.”

“Purposeful life needs an axis or hinge to which it is firmly fixed and yet around which it can freely revolve.”

“It seemed indeed that the study of light-scattering might carry one into the deepest problems of physics and chemistry, and it was this belief which led to the subject becoming the main theme of our activities at Calcutta from that time onwards.”

“In the history of science, we often find that the study of some natural phenomenon has been the starting-point in the development of a new branch of knowledge.”

“I have had two loves, Light and Sound, to which I have attributed equal affection.”

“Life is generally a very drab and uninteresting affair. But Nature has provided us with some compensation.”

“The student of Nature knows that one of the ways in which the exuberance of life manifests itself is in colour.”

“It is equally a part of the ebb and flow of life that she should express herself in song.”

“Art is, at the same time, joy, imagination, discipline and above all genius.”

“The pages of Euclid are like the opening bars of the music of the Grand Opera of Nature's great drama.”

“Then I turned round and saw the British Union Jack under which I had been sitting and it was then that I realised that my poor country, India, did not even have a flag of her own”

“The true wealth of a nation consists not in the stored- up gold but in the intellectual and physical strength of its people.”

“Each textbook must contain as frontispiece a portrait of Gandhiji and there must be lessons containing the sermons of Gandhiji from Sabarmati to Birla House.”

“I have a feeling that if the women of India take to science and interest themselves in the progress and advance of science as well, they will achieve what even men have failed to do.”

“The idea that a scientific discovery can be made by accident is ruled out by the fact that the accident, if it is one, never occurs except to the right man.”

“The happy discoverer in science is invariably a seeker after knowledge and truth working in a chosen field of his own and inspired in his labours by the hope of finding at least a little grain of something new.”

“Rarely indeed are any scientific discoveries made except as the result of a carefully thought-out programme of work. They come, if they do come, as the reward of months or years of systematic study and research in a particular branch of knowledge.”

“The great ideas seem to come most easily to youthful minds.”

“The principal requisite for success in scientific research is not the maturity of knowledge associated with age and experience, but the freshness of outlook which is the natural attribute of youth.”

“The principal function of the older generation of scientific men is to discover talent and genius in the younger generation and to provide ample opportunities for its free expression and expansion.”

“Intellectual beauty is indeed the highest kind of beauty.”

“The man of science is just a student of nature and equally derives inspiration from her.”

“He builds or paints pictures of her in his mind, through the intangible medium of his thoughts.”

“When the Nobel award was announced I saw it as a personal triumph, an achievement for me and my collaborators -- a recognition for a very remarkable discovery, for reaching the goal I had pursued for 7 years.”

“I felt truly humble when I received the Prize from King Gustav; it was a moment of great emotion but I could restrain myself.”