Nikola Tesla Quotes - Page 6
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, 1937Source:
...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 hope this is the invention that will make war impossible.
May 20th, 1916Source:
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
There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without.
February 9th, 1935Source:
The practical success of an idea, irrespective of its inherent merit, is dependent on the attitude of the contemporaries. If timely it is quickly adopted; if not, it is apt to fare like a sprout lured out of the ground by warm sunshine, only to be injured and retarded in its growth by the succeeding frost.
January 16th, 1910
Nikola Tesla was not only a great scientist but also a great patriot; he loved his people and his country as we are building it... We are paying our debt to him for his work for the benefit of mankind and for his love of his country.
March 19th, 1944
... There is an ideal striving which is the effort of the human mind to free itself from materialistic fetters. But there is no individuality. You wouldn't say a wave on the ocean had individuality. It is a succession of waves. You are not the same person today that you were yesterday. I am just a concatenation of existences which are nearly, but not exactly, alike. It is this concatenation which produces the effect of continuance, like a motion picture. What Tesla gives to posterity is not the product or Tesla, but of a succession of existences.
July 10th, 1932
I have hundreds of inventions which I could not take the patents of, on account of my misfortune.
That is the trouble with many inventors; they lack patience. They lack the willingness to work a thing out slowly and clearly and sharply in their mind, so that they can actually 'feel it work.' They want to try their first idea right off; and the result is they use up lots of money and lots of good material, only to find eventually that they are working in the wrong direction. We all make mistakes, and it is better to make them before we begin.
March 31st, 1895Source: