Tesla quotes in his handwriting font

Nikola Tesla Quotes - Page 4

Profound words from, or about, the world's greatest inventor
Displaying 31 - 40 of 119

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts.

February, 1919

If this does not appeal to you sufficiently to recognize in me a discoverer of principles, do me, at least, the justice of calling me an "inventor of some beautiful pieces of electrical apparatus.

June 23rd, 1907

It is quite possible that Tesla was the greatest inventor that ever lived. He may have done more to change our lives that any man in history.

May 24th, 1966

I come from a very wiry and long-lived race. Some of my ancestors have been centenarians, and one of them lived 129 years. I am determined to keep up the record and please myself with prospects of great promise. Then again, nature has given me a vivid imagination...

May 26th, 1917

It is true that some of them have had to do with wireless telegraphy and that in addition to the tower and poles there is a hole dug in the ground. This is 150 feet deep and is used in these experiments. The people about there, had they been awake instead of asleep, at other times would have seen even stranger things. Some day, but not at this time, I shall make an announcement of something that I never once dreamed of.

July 17th, 1903

...With these developments we have every reason to anticipate that in a time not very distant most telegraphic messages across the oceans will be transmitted without cables. For short distances we need a 'wireless' telephone, which requires no expert operators...

June, 1900

I am being driven to the conclusion that Tesla was the greatest electrical inventor we have had on our roll of membership; in fact we might go as far as to say that he was the greatest inventor in the realm of electrical engineering.


The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements. Speaking for myself, I have already had more than my full measure of this exquisite enjoyment; so much, that for many years my life was little short of continuous rapture.

February, 1919

The last 29 days of the month are the hardest.


...the idea gradually took hold of me that the earth might be used in place of the wire, thus dispensing with artificial conductors altogether. The immensity of the globe seemed an unsurmountable obstacle but after a prolonged study of the subject I became satisfied that the undertaking was rational...

February, 1919