Nikola Tesla Quotes - Page 7

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They say much about the Einstein's theory now. According to Einstein the ether does not exist and many people agree with him. But it is a mistake in my opinion. Ether's opponents refer to the experiments of Maykelson - Morli [Michelson-Morley] who made attempts to detect the Earth's movement relative to the fixed-bed ether. These experiments failed, however it didn't mean the ether's non-existence. I always based as fact the existence of mechanical ether in my works and therefore I could achieve positive success.

Nikola Tesla

Mistake, Mean, People

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I never have, above my signature, announced anything that I did not prove first. That is the reason why no statement of mine was ever contradicted, and I do not think it will be, because whenever I publish something I go through it first by experiment, then from experiment I calculate, and when I have the theory and practice meet I announce the results.

Nikola Tesla

Thinking, Practice, Firsts

Nikola Tesla (2002). “Nikola Tesla on His Work with Alternating Currents and Their Application to Wireless Telegraphy, Telephony, and Transmission of Power: An Extended Interview”, p.110, 21st Century Books

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Edison was by far the most successful and, probably, the last exponent of the purely empirical method of investigation. Everything he achieved was the result of persistent trials and experiments often performed at random but always attesting extraordinary vigor and resource. Starting from a few known elements, he would make their combinations and permutations, tabulate them and run through the whole list, completing test after test with incredible rapidity until he obtained a clue. His mind was dominated by one idea, to leave no stone unturned, to exhaust every possibility.

Nikola Tesla

Success, Running, Science

"Tesla Says Edison Was an Empiricist". The New York Times, October 19, 1931.

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The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct. [...] The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny.

Nikola Tesla

Race, Civilization, Parent

"Machine to End War by Nikola Tesla as told to George Sylvester Viereck". "Liberty", www.pbs.org. February 1937.

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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. I now feel sure that the realization of that idea is not far off. ...the possibilities of the development I refer to, namely, that of the operation of engines on any point of the earth by the energy of the medium.

Nikola Tesla

Mean, Ideas, Perfect

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An inventor's endeavor is essentially lifesaving. Whether he harnesses forces, improves devices, or provides new comforts and conveniences, he is adding to the safety of our existence. He is also better qualified than the average individual to protect himself in peril, for he is observant and resourceful.

Nikola Tesla

Life, Average, Safety

Nikola Tesla (2013). “My Inventions”, p.13, Lulu Press, Inc

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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

People, Humanity, Would Be

Address at the Belgrade train station, June 1, 1892.

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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

Distance, Sight, Perception

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.508, Simon and Schuster

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His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense. In view of this, the truly prodigious amount of his actual accomplishments is little short of a miracle.

Nikola Tesla

Sorry, Book, Knowledge

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Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life; Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its destination is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future... .

Nikola Tesla

Character, Past, Forever

Nikola Tesla, David Hatcher Childress (2000). “The Tesla Papers”, p.21, Adventures Unlimited Press

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To conquer by sheer force is becoming harder and harder every day. Defensive is getting continuously the advantage of offensive, as we progress in the satanic science of destruction.

Nikola Tesla

Progress, Becoming, Satanic

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.506, Simon and Schuster

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

Nikola Tesla

Rays, Motive, Cosmic

"Brooklyn Eagle" Newspaper, July 10, 1931.

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So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work... Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement.

Nikola Tesla

Energy, Three, Purpose

"The Problem of Increasing Human Energy". "Century" Illustrated Magazine, Volume 60, June 1900.

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Even matter called inorganic, believed to be dead, responds to irritants and gives unmistakable evidence of a living principle within. Everything that exists, organic or inorganic, animated or inert, is susceptible to stimulus from the outside.

Nikola Tesla

Giving, Principles, Matter

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.593, Simon and Schuster

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The human being is a self-propelled automaton entirely under the control of external influences. Willful and predetermined though they appear, his actions are governed not from within, but from without. He is like a float tossed about by the waves of a turbulent sea.

Nikola Tesla

Inspirational, Self, Sea

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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Universal peace as a result of cumulative effort through centuries past might come into existence quickly - not unlike a crystal that suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity.

Nikola Tesla

Past, Goal, Effort

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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

Inspirational, Idlers, May

"My Inventions" by Nikola Tesla, (Ch. 1), 1919.

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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

Development, Phases, Planets

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.559, Simon and Schuster

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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.

Nikola Tesla

Attitude, Sunshine, Ideas

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.564, Simon and Schuster

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Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence - by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So 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

Selfish, Struggle, Heart

"The Transmission Of Electrical Energy Without Wires As A Means For Furthering Peace". "Electrical World and Engineer", (pp. 21-24), January 7, 1905.

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Up to that time I never realized that I possessed any particular gift of discovery, but Lord Rayleigh, whom I always considered as an ideal man of science, had said so and if that was the case, I felt that I should concentrate on some big idea.

Nikola Tesla

Men, Discovery, Ideas

Nikola Tesla (2016). “My Inventions: And Other Writings”, p.40, Courier Dover Publications

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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? Though we have no positive evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such a body, for by whatever process it was separated from other bodies - and this is the accepted view of its origin - it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation.

Nikola Tesla

Views, Space, Doe

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.283, Simon and Schuster

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It is characteristic of fundamental discoveries, of great achievements of the intellect, that they retain an undiminished power upon the imagination of the thinker. The memorable experiment of Faraday with a disc rotating between two poles of a magnet, which has borne such magnificent fruit, has long passed into every-day experience; yet there are certain features about this embryo of the present dynamos and motors which even today appear to us striking, and are worthy of the most careful study.

Nikola Tesla

Memorable, Two, Discovery

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

Nikola Tesla

Simple, Engineering, Doubt

Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Nikola Tesla Treasury”, p.514, Simon and Schuster

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How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate... [As a youth] I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls. I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.

Nikola Tesla

Running, Uncles, Fall

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Born: July 10, 1856
Died: January 7, 1943
Occupation: Inventor
Cite this Page: Citation

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