“You don’t have to be able to lay eggs to know when one of them is rotten.”

It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.

Old people think young people haven’t learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love.

Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, but it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies.

The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.

To make discoveries, you have to be curious about why the universe is the way it is.

It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.

People think of education as something that they can finish.

The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying.

You don’t need to predict the future. Just choose a future – a good future, a useful future – and make the kind of prediction that will alter human emotions and reactions in such a way that the future you predicted will be brought about.

The first law of dietetics seems to be: if it tastes good, it’s bad for you.

There seems to be a feeling that anything that is natural is good. Strychnine is natural.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.’

The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

There is an art to science, and a science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole.

Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.

Draw a balance between the present and the future and one advice I give to every young Indian – the most difficult thing in India, urban India, is housing. So first thing that you do is try and buy house as that gives a great sense of security.

The President Barack Obama had suggested that I not watch the news during the confirmation process. I assiduously followed his advice.

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

I should say in general the advantage of education is to better fit a man for life’s work. I would advise young men to take a college course, as a rule, but think some are just as well off with a thorough business training.

A man should never wear shorts in the city. Flip-flops and shorts in the city are never appropriate. Shorts should only be worn on the tennis court or on the beach.

Don’t judge those who try and fail. Judge only those who fail to try.

Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.

Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.