Nikola Tesla Quotes - Page 3
My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time. But the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.
June, 1919
...I finally succeeded in reaching electrical movements or rates of delivery of electrical energy not only approximating, but, as shown in many comparative tests and measurements, actually surpassing those of lightning discharges...
May 16th, 1900
It is probable that we shall perfect instruments for indicating the altitude of a place by means of a circuit, properly constructed and arranged, and I have thought of a number of other uses to which this principle may be put.
January 30th, 1901Source:
I was myself a fair scholar. For years I pondered, so to speak, day and night over books, and filled my head with sound views - very sound ones, indeed - those of others. But I could no get to practical results. I then began to work and think independently. Gradually my views became unsound, but they conducted me to some sound results.
November 14th, 1890Source:
I do not hesitate to state here for future reference and as a test of the accuracy of my scientific forecast that flying machines and ships propelled by electricity transmitted without wire will have ceased to be a wonder in ten years from now. I would say five were it not that there is such a thing as “inertia of human opinion” resisting revolutionary ideas.
May 19th, 1907
Up to the age of eight years, my character was weak and vacillating. I had neither courage or strength to form a firm resolve. My feelings came in waves and surges and vibrated unceasingly between extremes. My wishes were of consuming force and like the heads of the hydra, they multiplied. I was oppressed by thoughts of pain in life and death and religious fear. I was swayed by superstitious belief and lived in constant dread of the spirit of evil, of ghosts, and ogres and other unholy monsters of the dark. Then, all at once, there came a tremendous change which altered the course of my whole existence.
February, 1919Source:
But we shall not satisfy ourselves simply with improving steam and explosive engines or inventing new batteries; we have something much better to work for, a greater task to fulfill. We have to evolve means for obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever.
March, 1897Source:
...for if the potential be sufficiently high and if the terminals of the coils be maintained at the proper altitudes the action described will take place, and a current will be transmitted through the elevated air strata, which will encounter little and possibly even less resistance than if conveyed through a copper wire of a practicable size.
September 2nd, 1897
Tesla was one of the greatest geniuses to come out of the earth. He did things they said could't be done... He was the real father of radio, not Marconi. A U.S. Supreme Court patent decision, the year after Tesla's death, awarded him that honor.
July 12th, 1981
... There is an ideal striving which is the effort of the human mind to free itself from materialistic fetters. But there is no individuality. You wouldn't say a wave on the ocean had individuality. It is a succession of waves. You are not the same person today that you were yesterday. I am just a concatenation of existences which are nearly, but not exactly, alike. It is this concatenation which produces the effect of continuance, like a motion picture. What Tesla gives to posterity is not the product or Tesla, but of a succession of existences.
July 10th, 1932