Tesla quotes in his handwriting font

Nikola Tesla Quotes

Profound words from, or about, the world's greatest inventor
Displaying 1 - 10 of 133

...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

More than 35 years ago, I undertook the production of these phenomena (of lightning) and, in 1899 I actually succeeded, using a generator of 2,000 horsepower, in obtaining discharges of 18,000,000 volts carrying currents of 1,200 amperes, which were of such power as to be audible at a distance of 13 miles. I also learned how to produce such lightnings as occur in Nature, and mastered all the technical difficulties in this connection. But I found that even in the small and comparatively negligible trigger work called for the employment of thousands of horsepower; and this is the great obstacle now in the way of this supreme accomplishment.

December, 1933

You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.

October, 1947

But I hope that it will also be demonstrated soon that in my experiments in the West I was not merely beholding a vision, but had caught sight of a great and profound truth.

February 9th, 1901

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

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, 1897

I have hundreds of inventions which I could not take the patents of, on account of my misfortune.


The apparatus described by me comprises four circuits, peculiarly arranged and carefully attuned, so as to secure the greatest possible flow of electrical energy through them. The generator is a transformer of my invention and the oscillations employed are of a kind which are now known in technical literature as the Tesla currents. Every one of these elements, even to the last detail, is contained in the Marconi patent which was involved in the suit, and its use constitutes an infringement of all the fundamental features of my wireless system.

March 20th, 1914

It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering — only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world.

January 7th, 1905

My ear barely caught signals coming in regular succession which could not have been produced on earth...

October 12th, 1919