Nikola Tesla and Women

Nikola Tesla, that giant of science, never married and founded a family. No women, with the exception of his mother and his sisters, played a part of importance in his life. However, although he was not expressing some interest in women but lived the life of a loner and an ascetic, many, some of them famous women of the time, tried to get closer to him. One of them was once renowned Franch actress Sarah Bernhardt. Even though she used tricks, she had no success in getting close to our great countryman. How did that happen?

During his stay in Paris where he had been invited to lecture, Tesla, at the time already well-known scientist, was sitting on the terrace of the D’la Pe café. An elegantly dressed woman, with a nicely combed red hair, passed by close to his table and knowingly dropped her handkerchief. It was Sarah Bernhardt, the actress many men dreamed of. Seeing what had happened, Tesla grabbed the handkerchief, bowed and handed it back to the lady. That was the beginning and the end of their acquaintance. There were more such occasions for many other women, more or less famous, wanted to get near that mysterious, ingenious loner.

A journalist once asked Tesla why he had never married. Although the question was a bit out of place and indiscreet, the great man did not get angry, yet he replied: “I have decided to dedicate my whole life to work and for that reason I gave up love and companionship of a good woman; and even more than that. I believe that a writer or a musician or an artist should marry. They gain inspiration that leads to finer achievement. But an inventor has so intense a nature, with so much in it of wild, passionate quality that, in giving himself to a woman, he would give up everything from his chosen domain. It is a pity, too; sometimes we feel so lonely.”

For the love of science Tesla gave up his personal happiness and by that he put his greatest sacrifice on the altar of science and progress.