Quotessence
Home / Authors / Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla Quotes

Inventor

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIdeasMindWorldEnergyIfsInspirationalHumansUniverseInventionResultsBrainMayScienceEarthForceInventorExistenceFirstsMade

Famous Nikola Tesla Quotes

“Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of a new scientific truth will be more important than the squabbles of diplomats. Even the newspapers of our own day are beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of fresh philosophical concepts as news. The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere 'stick' in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis. Progress along such lines will be impossible while nations persist in the savage practice of killing each other off. I inherited from my father, an erudite man who labored hard for peace, an ineradicable hatred of war.”

WarPhilosophyTruthSciencePeaceEducationProgressCrimeIgnoranceFutureDiscoveryHatredKillingIncomeCivilizedSavagery
Author:Nikola Tesla
Create image

“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. Owing to the similarity of our construction and the sameness of our environment, we respond in like manner to similar stimuli, and from the concordance of our reactions, understanding is born. In the course of ages, mechanisms of infinite complexity are developed, but what we call 'soul' or 'spirit,' is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the 'soul' or the 'spirit' ceases likewise. I expressed these ideas long before the behaviorists, led by Pavlov in Russia and by Watson in the United States, proclaimed their new psychology. This apparently mechanistic conception is not antagonistic to an ethical conception of life.”

LifeMindScienceSpiritReligionUniverseGoalNatureConsciousnessPsychologyEnvironmentEthicsPhysicsAstronomyTheologyMaterialismAfterlifeDogmaScience And ReligionCosmologyNaturalismWatsonDeterminismLife After DeathBehaviorismPavlovJohn WatsonFirst CauseStimuliIvan PavlovBehavioristsIvan Petrovich PavlovJohn B WatsonJohn Broadus Watson
Book:Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla
Create image

“Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent.”

WorldHumansScienceHumanityEvilResultsEffortKnowledgeMovementIgnoranceElementsSpreadResistanceIgnorantFrictionUnificationRetard
Book:The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, With Special References to the Harnessing of
Create image

“The recurrence of a phenomenon like Edison is not very likely. The profound change of conditions and the ever increasing necessity of theoretical training would seem to make it impossible. He will occupy a unique and exalted position in the history of his native land, which might well be proud of his great genius and undying achievements in the interest of humanity.”

WellsSeemsMightScienceHumanityInterestChangeHistoryImpossibleLandConditionsPositionTheoryProudGeniusAchievementUniqueTrainingProfoundNativePhenomenonBe ProudTheoreticalExaltedNative LandRecurrence
Author:Nikola Tesla
Create image

“Ere long intelligence-transmitted without wires-will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence.”

IfsLongMadeStatesEarthScienceWonderKnowledgeConditionsExperienceIntelligentOrganismsWirePulseTransmitMagneticLiving Organisms
Book:Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency: [Illustrated & Biography Added]
Create image

“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.”

MindIdeasWholeRunningLastsSuccessScienceResultsKnownSuccessfulPossibilityElementsAchievementResourcesStonesTestsMethodExtraordinaryIncrediblesStartingListsTrialsExperimentsCombinationInvestigationCluePersistentVigorCompletingExponents
Author:Nikola Tesla
Create image

“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.”

FirstsLittlesBookScienceChanceViewsKnowledgeKnowingLearningTheoryAmountLaborMiracleMethodBlindInstinctSorryExtremesSavedPracticalsWitnessMathematicalAccomplishmentCoveredContemptCentsImmenseInventorCalculationsDoingsProdigiousBook Learning
Author:Nikola Tesla
Create image

“If he [Thomas Edison] had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... [J]ust a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.”

IfsLittlesReasonScienceFoundObjectsTheoryPercentLaborSavedBeesNinetyDiligenceNeedlesCalculationsStrawsUst
Author:Nikola Tesla
Create image