259 Quotes by 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.

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.

We may produce at will, from a sending station. an electrical effect in any particular region of the globe; we may determine the relative position or course of a moving object, such as a vessel at sea, the distance traversed by the same, or its speed.

Alternate currents, especially of high frequencies, pass with astonishing freedom through even slightly rarefied gases. The upper strata of the air are rarefied. To reach a number of miles out into space requires the overcoming of difficulties of a merely mechanical nature.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheel-work of the universe.

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.

Sometimes I feel that by not marrying, I made too great a sacrifice to my work.

Religion is simply an ideal. It is an ideal force that tends to free the human being from material bonds. I do not believe that matter and energy are interchangeable, any more than are the body and soul. There is just so much matter in the universe and it cannot be destroyed. As I see life on this planet, there is no individuality. It may sound ridiculous to say so, but I believe each person is but a wave passing through space, ever-changing from minute to minute as it travels along, finally, some day, just becoming dissolved.

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.