Tesla quotes in his handwriting font

Nikola Tesla Quotes

Profound words from, or about, the world's greatest inventor
Displaying 1 - 10 of 106

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

Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.

June, 1900

The greatest energy of movement will be obtained when synchronism is maintained between the pump impulses and the natural oscillations of the system.

May, 1919

Following up these promising revelations I demonstrated conclusively by experiments that great amounts of electrical energy can be transmitted to any distance through upper air strata which are easily accessible, and since this truth has been recognized every fiber has been strained to realize such a transmission on a large scale.

March 29th, 1899

It has cost me years of thought to arrive at certain results, by many believed to be unattainable, for which there are now numerous claimants, and the number of these is rapidly increasing, like that of the colonels in the South after the war.

September 24th, 1890

The secondary discharge of this apparatus is so powerful that it was always more or less dangerous for the safety of the laboratory and machinery in the same, and elsewhere, to let it play. A number of times the shop caught fire by sparks passing from some nail, wire or any kind of conductor. When the discharge was playing sparks were seen to fly almost everywhere through the laboratory, from one to another object and it was evident that it was more or less risky to let the sparks from the free terminal pass to the ground, because short waves were produced in the conductors and these were only too apt to rupture the insulation of any apparatus in the circuit or circuits connected with the oscillator or in the neighbourhood of the same.

January 1st, 1900

The last 29 days of the month are the hardest.


My conviction has grown so strong that I no longer look on this plan of energy or intelligence transmission as a mere theoretical possibility, but as a serious problem in electrical engineering, which must be carried out some day.

February 24th, 1893

On more than one occasion you have offended me, but in my qualities both as Christian and philosopher I have always forgiven you and only pitied you for your errors.

November 24th, 1898

There were many days when [I] did not know where my next meal was coming from. But I was never afraid to work, I went where some men were digging a ditch ... [and] said I wanted to work. The boss looked at my good clothes and white hands and laughed to the others ... but he said, “All right. Spit on your hands. Get in the ditch.” And I worked harder than anybody. At the end of the day I had $2.

July 12th, 1937