This text is based on a course I have taught for many years to first year graduate andsenior-level undergraduate students at Caltech. One outcome of this teaching has been therealization that although students typically decide to study plasma physics as a means to-wards some larger goal, they often conclude that this study has an attraction and charmof its own; in a sense the journey becomes as enjoyable as the destination. This conclu-sion is shared by me and I feel that a delightful aspect of plasma physics is the frequenttransferability of ideas between extremely different applications so, for example, a conceptdeveloped in the context of astrophysics might suddenly become relevant to fusion researchor vice versa.