Nikola Tesla Quotes
Most certainly, some planets are not inhabited, but others are, and among these there must exist life under all conditions and phases of development.
May 23rd, 1909Source:
Not only for the physical achievement of your researches on high frequencies which laid the basic foundation of the great industry of radio transmission in which I have labored, but for the incessant inspiration of your early writings and your example, do l owe you an especial debt of gratitude.
Mses., be careful, do not marry too young because then men marry you mostly for your beauty.
1974
I do not believe in laziness, and I should like to see the loafer wiped from the face or the earth; but I want that those who are willing to work should accomplish their results with the least labor and in the best way.
December 18th, 1904Source:
Now, I must tell you of a strange experience which bore fruit in my later life... ...We had a cold [snap] drier than even observed before. People walking in the snow left a luminous trail. [As I stroked] Mačak's back, [it became] a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks. My father remarked, this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see on the trees in a storm. My mother seemed alarmed. Stop playing with the cat, she said, he might start a fire. I was thinking abstractly. Is nature a cat? If so, who strokes its back? It can only be God, I concluded. I can not exaggerate the effect of this marvelous sight on my childish imagination. Day after day I asked myself what is electricity and found no answer. Eighty years have gone by since and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it.
1939Source:
Th[e] problem was rendered extremely difficult, owing to the immense dimensions of the planet... But by gradual and continuous improvements of a generator of electrical oscillations... I finally succeeded in reaching rates of delivery of electrical energy actually surpassing those of lightning discharges... By use of such a generator of stationary waves and receiving apparatus properly placed and adjusted in any other locality, however remote, it is practicable to transmit intelligible signals, or to control or actuate at will any one apparatus for many other important and valuable purposes.
May 16th, 1900
...the greatest value of my invention will result from its effect upon warfare and armaments, for by reason of its certain and unlimited destructiveness it will tend to bring about and maintain permanent peace among nations.
July 1st, 1898
What Nature does not choose to reveal to us, it is no use trying to force from her by bolts and screws.
April 6th, 1897Source:
The evolution of electric power from the discovery of Faraday in 1831 to the initial great installation of the Tesla polyphase system in 1896 [at Niagara Falls] is undoubtedly the most tremendous event in all engineering history.
August, 1943
With a different form of wireless instrument devised by me some years ago it was found practicable to locate a body of metallic ore below the ground, and it seems that a submarine could be similarly detected.
April 15th, 1917