Nikola Tesla

A man is born to work, to suffer and to fight; he who doesn't, must perish.

Restraint has not always been according to my taste, but my pleasurable experiences are a huge reward.

I would give a thousand secrets of nature upon which I stumbled by accident, in exchange for this one which I extracted from nature, in spite of all the miracles and dangers which I faced.

This gives you vigor and vitality.

Not by a jugfull, I am enjoying myself.

Quick, Tesla! Where is it?

If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6, and 9, then you would have the key to the universe.

I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination.

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

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

What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics.

A new idea must not be judged by its immediate results.

Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

... The female mind has demonstrated a capacity for all the mental acquirements and achievements of men, and as generations ensue that capacity will be expanded; the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated to an activity that will be all the more intense and powerful because of centuries of repose. Woman will ignore precedent and startle civilization with their progress.

Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?

We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true.

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. Uncleanliness, which breeds disease and death, is not only a self-destructive but highly immoral habit.

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.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

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. To understand the true nature of the universe, one must think it in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.