Nikola Tesla Quotes - Page 9
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, 1919Source:
I have never failed in any of my experiments and therefore I have good reason to believe that this one will not prove worthless...
April 4th, 1901Source:
Man was born to work, to suffer and to fight, because whoever does not do so must perish.
The opinion of the world does not affect me. I have placed as the real values in my life what follows when I am dead.
July 23rd, 1934Source:
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
We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true.
January 16th, 1910
If there are intelligent inhabitants of Mars or any other planet, it seems to me that we can do something to attract their attention... I have had this scheme under consideration for five or six years.
March 25th, 1896Source:
My ear barely caught signals coming in regular succession which could not have been produced on earth...
October 12th, 1919
Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.
July, 1934
...these features chiefly interest the scientific man, the thinker and reasoner. There is another feature which affords us still more satisfaction and enjoyment, and which is of still more universal interest, chiefly because of its bearing upon the welfare of mankind. Gentlemen, there is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development.
January 27th, 1897Source: