Nikola Tesla

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and
vibration.
– Nikola Tesla

Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world.
– Nikola Tesla

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but
one can think deeply and be quite insane.
– Nikola Tesla

Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of
humanity.
– Nikola Tesla

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one
decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.
– Nikola Tesla

When natural inclination develops into a passionate desire, one advances towards his goal in
seven-league boots.
– Nikola Tesla

The last 29 days of the month are the hardest.
– Nikola Tesla

The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on
that truth, we become in tune with this great power.
– Nikola Tesla

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.
– Nikola Tesla

I have harnessed the cosmic rays and caused them to operate a motive device.
– Nikola Tesla

Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the
complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human
needs.
– Nikola Tesla

All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed. Only to
emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.
– Nikola Tesla

To stop war by the perfection of engines of destruction alone, might consume centuries and
centuries. Other means must be employed to hasten the end.
– Nikola Tesla

Money does not represent such a value as men have placed upon it. All my money has been
invested into experiments with which I have made new discoveries enabling mankind to have
a little easier life.
– Nikola Tesla

The economic transmission of power without wires is of all-surpassing importance to man. By
its means he will gain complete mastery of the air, the sea and the desert. It will enable him
to dispense with the necessity of mining, pumping, transporting and burning fuel, and so do
away with innumerable causes of sinful waste. By its means, he will obtain at any place and in
any desired amount, the energy of remote waterfalls – to drive his machinery, to construct his
canals, tunnels and highways, to manufacture the materials of his want, his clothing and food,
to heat and light his home – year in, year out, ever and ever, by day and by night. It will make
the living glorious sun his obedient, toiling slave. It will bring peace and harmony on earth.
– Nikola Tesla

If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of
the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry
witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him
ninety per cent of his labor.
– Nikola Tesla

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.
– Nikola Tesla

Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known
factors.
– Nikola Tesla

Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all, a
marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty, and mystery beyond human conception, and so
delicate that a word, a breath, a look, nay, a thought may injure it.
– Nikola Tesla

We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is
marked by devastation.
– Nikola Tesla

A point of great importance would be first to know: what is the capacity of the earth? And
what charge does it contain if electrified?
– Nikola Tesla

The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire: First, a feeble spark, next a flickering
flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.
– Nikola Tesla

From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much
suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to
appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a
means of achievement.
– Nikola Tesla

Whoever wishes to get a true appreciation of the greatness of our age should study the
history of electrical development. There he will find a story more wonderful than any tale from
Arabian Nights.
– Nikola Tesla

Within a few years a simple and inexpensive device, readily carried about, will enable one
to receive on land or sea the principal news, to hear a speech, a lecture, a song or play of a
musical instrument, conveyed from any other region of the globe.
– Nikola Tesla

The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains.
– Nikola Tesla

There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted
people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of
the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exciting thought
would be that it is a deed of a Serb.
– Nikola Tesla

If the genius of invention were to reveal to-morrow the secret of immortality, of eternal
beauty and youth, for which all humanity is aching, the same inexorable agents which
prevent a mass from changing suddenly its velocity would likewise resist the force of the new
knowledge until time gradually modifies human thought.
– Nikola Tesla

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point
of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or
reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and
new.
– Nikola Tesla

Throughout space there is energy… it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in
attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
– Nikola Tesla

Instinct is something which transcends knowledge. We have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers
that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the
brain, is futile.
– Nikola Tesla

One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
– Nikola Tesla

One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from
the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying
me along swiftly… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep
my head above the surface. Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to
withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks
below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the
pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned
on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.
– Nikola Tesla

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man
is no more.
– Nikola Tesla

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the
inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such emotions make a
man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
– Nikola Tesla

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one
decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.
– Nikola Tesla

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.
– Nikola Tesla

Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the
complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human
needs.
– Nikola Tesla

This planet, with all its appalling immensity, is to electric currents virtually no more than a
small metal ball.
– Nikola Tesla

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and
communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone
to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… peace can only come as a natural
consequence of universal enlightenment.
– Nikola Tesla

Einsteins relativity work is a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and
makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple
whom ignorant people take for a king.
– Nikola Tesla

Whatever the future may bring, the universal application of these great principles is fully
assured, though it may be long in coming.
– Nikola Tesla

Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from
misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always
caused by the inability of appreciating one another’s point of view.
– Nikola Tesla

Most certainly, some planets are not inhabited, but others are, and among these there must
exist life under all conditions and phases of development.
– Nikola Tesla

To create and to annihilate material substance, cause it to aggregate in forms according to his
desire, would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man’s mind, his most complete
triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement, which would place him beside his
Creator, make him fulfill his Ultimate Destiny.
– Nikola Tesla

Universal Peace, assuming it to be in the fullest sense realizable, might not require eons for its
accomplishment, however probable this may appear, judging from the imperceptibly slow
growth of all great reformatory ideas of the past.
– Nikola Tesla

I don’t care that they stole my idea – I care that they don’t have any of their own.
– Nikola Tesla

Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing
extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know
each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions. We must transmit our
intelligence, travel, transport the materials and transfer the energies necessary for our
existence.
– Nikola Tesla

Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true.
– Nikola Tesla

The human mind thinks but to complicate. As soon as one problem is solved, that solution
introduces new complications, other problems that perhaps did not exist before. That was one
of my great troubles when I was younger, I invented many things that were very fine, but
always I was getting into complications. I have had to work very hard to overcome that.
– Nikola Tesla