Nikola Tesla

“When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.”

“The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.”

“We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences.”

“An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than a watch, will enable him to listen anywhere, on land or sea, to a speech delivered or music played in some other place, however distant.”

“Considerations of mere utility weigh little in the balance against the higher benefits of civilization. We are confronted with portentous problems which can not be solved just by providing for our material existence, however abundantly. On the contrary, progress in this direction is fraught with hazards and perils not less menacing than those born from want and suffering.”

“If we were to release the energy of atoms or discover some other way of developing cheap and unlimited power at any point of the globe this accomplishment, instead of being a blessing, might bring disaster to mankind in giving rise to dissension and anarchy which would ultimately result in the enthronement of the hated regime of force.”

“My mother was an inventor of the first order and would, I believe, have achieved great things had she not been so remote from modern life and its multifold opportunities.”

“The moment one constructs a device to carry into practise a crude idea he finds himself unavoidably engrost with the details and defects of the apparatus.”

“When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain.”

“Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it.”

“I have been since years planning self-controlled automata and believe that mechanisms can be produced which will act as if possest of reason, to a limited degree, and will create a revolution in many commercial and industrial departments.”

“The demonstrations and experiments performed from time to time by the instructors fascinated me and were undoubtedly a powerful incentive to invention.”

“I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention.”

“I wanted to know more of this wonderful force; I longed for experiment and investigation and resigned myself to the inevitable with aching heart.”

“I started by first picturing in my mind a direct-current machine, running it and following the changing flow of the currents in the armature.”

“Next I would visualize systems comprising motors and generators and operate them in various ways.”

“For a while I gave myself up entirely to the intense enjoyment of picturing machines and devising new forms.”

“The pieces of apparatus I conceived were to me absolutely real and tangible in every detail, even to the minute marks and signs of wear.”

“I delighted in imagining the motors constantly running, for in this way they presented to mind's eye a more fascinating sight.”

“In less than two months I evolved virtually all the types of motors and modifications of the system which are now identified with my name.”

“I made several improvements in the Central Station apparatus and perfected a telephone repeater or amplifier which was never patented or publicly described but would be creditable to me even today.”

“Ever since that time the magnification of feeble actions fascinated me, and when, years later, I took up the experimental study of mechanical and electrical resonance, I was keenly interested from the very start.”

“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.”

“From many other considerations it appeared desirable to invent a simpler device for the production of electric oscillations.”

“But the prospective effect of the rotating field was not to render worthless existing machinery; on the contrary, it was to give it additional value.”

“The "Magnifying Transmitter" was the product of labors extending through years, having for their chief object the solution of problems which are infinitely more important to mankind than mere industrial development.”

“My alternating system of power transmission came at a psychological moment, as a long-sought answer to pressing industrial questions, and altho considerable resistance had to be overcome and opposing interests reconciled, as usual, the commercial introduction could not be long delayed.”

“In investigating the behaviour of high frequency currents I had satisfied myself that an electric field of sufficient intensity could be produced in a room to light up electrodeless vacuum tubes.”

“There are, however, exceptional reasons why wireless should be given the fullest freedom of development.”

“Only thru annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations.”

“The idea of constructing an automaton, to bear out my theory, presented itself to me early but I did not begin active work until 1893, when I started my wireless investigations.”

“The consummation of the experiment was, however, delayed until the summer of that year when I finally had the satisfaction of seeing rotation effected by alternating currents of different phase, and without sliding contacts or commutator, as I had conceived a year before.”

“If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed.”

“After weeks or months my passion for the temporarily abandoned invention returns and I invariably find answers to all the vexing questions with scarcely any effort.”

“During the succeeding two or three years a number of automatic mechanisms, to be actuated from a distance, were constructed by me and exhibited to visitors in my laboratory.”

“In demonstrating my invention before audiences, the visitors were requested to ask any questions, however involved, and the automaton would answer them by signs.”

“In an imperfect manner it is practicable, with the existing wireless plants, to launch an aeroplane, have it follow a certain approximate course, and perform some operation at a distance of many hundreds of miles.”

“As early as 1898 I proposed to representatives of a large manufacturing concern the construction and public exhibition of an automobile carriage which, left to itself, would perform a great variety of operations involving something akin to judgment.”

“But not until I had attained manhood did I realize that I was an inventor.”

“In the course of time it became perfectly evident to me that I was merely an automaton endowed with power of movement, responding to the stimuli of the sense organs and thinking and acting accordingly.”

“Mechanical flight was the one thing I wanted to accomplish altho still under the discouraging recollection of a bad fall I sustained by jumping with an umbrella from the top of a building.”

“I was amazed at this wonderful man who, without early advantages and scientific training, had accomplished so much.”

“One should think that so simple and beautiful an invention, possessing many features of an ideal motor, should be adopted at once and, undoubtedly, it would under similar conditions.”

“Although I knew that higher electro-motive forces were attainable with apparatus of larger dimensions, I had an instinctive perception that the object could be accomplished by the proper design of a comparatively small and compact transformer.”

“The greatest good will comes from technical improvements tending to unification and harmony, and my wireless transmitter is preeminently such.”

“It was achieved simply by discarding the enormous structures, which are bad enough for transmission but wholly unsuitable for reception, and adopting a more appropriate type of receiver.”

“Ever since I was told by some of the greatest men of the time, leaders in science whose names are immortal, that I am possesst of an unusual mind, I bent all my thinking faculties on the solution of great problems regardless of sacrifice.”

“I remember that when later I called on an official in Washington, with a view of offering the invention to the Government, he burst out in laughter upon my telling him what I had accomplished.”

“In recent years I have successfully solved this problem and am now planning aerial machines devoid of sustaining planes, ailerons, propellers and other external attachments, which will be capable of immense speeds and are very likely to furnish powerful arguments for peace in the near future.”

“If we want to avert an impending calamity and a state of things which may transform this globe into an inferno, we should push the development of flying machines and wireless transmission of energy without an instant's delay and with all the power and resources of the nation.”

“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”