50 Electrifying Nikola Tesla Quotes that’ll Inspire You to be an Inventor like Him

Nikola Tesla Quotes that’ll Inspire you to be an Inventor:
Every time you open your fridge or turn on the lights say thanks to Nikola Tesla for inventing the first alternating current (AC) motor system.
Due to which, we are able to live in a world, where electricity lightens our home, streets, and helps in powering mechanical devices, that aids our comfy modern lifestyle.
About Nikola Tesla:
Tesla known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist.
Although Tesla was quite a lone wolf, who didn’t socialise much but he seldom enjoyed meeting like-minded innovators, creative people, and researchers.
American author, and humourist Mark Twain was his great pal, who enjoyed hanging out and watching Tesla performing experiments in his laboratory.
Tesla’s mother Đuka Mandić also had a knack for inventing new things. In her spare time, she enjoyed making home craft tools and mechanical appliances.
Though she never received formal education but she had a sharp memory, and could easily memorize Serbian epic poems.
Tesla credited his mother’s influence and genetics for his eidetic memory, and creative abilities, which helped him to make several breakthroughs in his career.
Also Read: 100 Bitter-sweet Existential Quotes by famous Philosophers that’ll hit you Deep
Edison and Tesla’s feud:
Before Tesla’s work got recognised by the world, he was gaining practical experience for which he worked for a while at the Edison Machine Works in New York. It was here, that he first talked about the quantum leap of AC current, and its prospects in the future, which appalled Edison.
Sources suggest that Edison took advantage of Tesla’s ingenuity by promising to reward him with monetary benefit, if he could improve Edison’s design of DC current power system.
Tesla nearly spent a year improving, and adding features to the existing pattern. When he went to collect his payment from Edison, he remarked that– Tesla didn’t understand the American humour, and refused to pay or credit him for his work.
The rivalry between these two inventors provided the hint of flavours to the tabloids, looking for juicy gossip.
Edison even started a smear campaign against Tesla, propagating the news that AC current was hazardous, and DC was the safest option amongst the two.
This separation wasn’t the end of the Child of Light, he was destined to make ripples in the sphere of science, and innovation. With the help of financers, Tesla was able to set up laboratories, and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices.
When Thomas Edison died, in 1931, Tesla for the first time wrote a column in The New York Times on Edison’s life:
“He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene … His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened. At first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory, and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of the labour. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor’s instinct and practical American sense.”
Tesla’s Achievements:
Tesla’s alternating current (AC) induction motor, and related polyphase AC patents licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888 gave him financial freedom, which helped him to fund his projects.
Tesla continued to experiment with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging.
He was fascinated with wireless devices and found success in building a wireless-controlled boat, and even claimed to have invented a death beam.
Tesla enjoyed working in his lab, and worked every day from 9 am to 6 pm, and sometimes more. He never slept for more than two hours per night, and took small naps to recharge his brain.
In 1893, Tesla made shared with the world about the possibility of wireless communication with devices, and was putting his ideas into work in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project. But ran out of funding before he could complete it.
After Tesla’s demise, his work remained unrecognised until 1960, when the General Conference on Weights, and Measures honoured Tesla by naming the SI unit of magnetic flux density after him.
Also Read: 105 Wittiest Mark Twain Quotes on Travel, Politics, Education, Patriotism & Humour
Tesla’s Death:
Tesla’s life in a nutshell is a story of honesty, hard work, passion, and sacrifice he did for the betterment of the people, science, and future. He made rapid advancement in production, transmission, and application of electric power.
Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels where he regularly fed pigeons. On 7 January 1943, at the age of 86, Tesla died alone in Room 3327 of the Hotel New Yorker.
His dead body was later found by maid Alice Monaghan, who ignored the “do not disturb” sign that Tesla had placed on his door two days before his death.
To know what was in the beautiful mind of this great inventor, let’s read some of the best quotes by Nikola Tesla. So here are 50 Electrifying Nikola Tesla quotes that’ll Inspire you to be an Inventor like Him.
50 Electrifying Nikola Tesla quotes that’ll Inspire you to be an Inventor like Him

Nikola Tesla Quotes on Innovation
1. “I don’t care that they stole my idea… I care that they don’t have any of their own.”
2. “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
3. “Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
4. “My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
5. “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”
6. “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.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
7. “If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.”
8. “Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”
9. “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
10. “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 Quotes
Also Read: 105 Best Life-Saving Quotes on Change by Powerful Personalities
Nikola Tesla Quotes on Life
7. “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.”
8. “Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.”
9. “One of the great events in my life was my first meeting with Edison. This wonderful man, who had received no scientific training, yet had accomplished so much, filled me with amazement. I felt that the time I had spent studying languages, literature and art was wasted; though later, of course, I learned this was not so.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes on Life
10. “We build 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.”
11. “With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: at first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look-for dizzier heights.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
12. “Most certainly, so planets are no inhabited, but others are, and among these there must exist life under all conditions and phases of development.”
13. “Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.”
14. “The opinion of the world does not affect me. I have placed as the real values in my life what follows when I am dead.”
15. “As I review the events of my past life I realize how subtle are the influences that shape our destinies.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
Also Read: 100 Albert Camus Quotes on God, Suicide, Death, Love, Psychology, Happiness & More
Nikola Tesla Quotes on God and Religion
16. “What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes on God
17. “The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible.”
Nikola Tesla Quotes on Intelligence

18. “Of all things, I liked books best.”
19. “Intelligent people tend to have less friends than the average person. The smarter you are, the more selective you become.”
20. “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.”
21. “Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.”
22. “If the genius of invention were to reveal tomorrow the secret of immortality, of eternal beauty and youth, for which all humanity is aching, the same inexorable agents which prevent a mass from changing suddenly its velocity would likewise resist the force of the new knowledge until time gradually modifies human thought.”
23. “The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
24. “Instinct is something which transcends knowledge. we have, undoubtedly, certain finer fibers that enable us to perceive truths when logical deduction, or any other willful effort of the brain, is futile.”
25. “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.”
26. “Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another’s point of view.”
27. “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.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
Also Read: 100 Best Osho Quotes on Love, Life Religion and Philosophy
More Nikola Tesla Quotes

28. “It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
29. “We wind a simple ring of iron with coils; we establish the connections to the generator, and with wonder and delight we note the effects of strange forces which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct energy at will.”
30. “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 Quotes
31. “As in nature, all is ebb and tide, all is wave motion, so it seems that in all branches of industry, alternating currents – electric wave motion – will have the sway.”
32. “The spread of civilization may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.”
33. “There is no doubt that some plant food, such as oatmeal, is more economical than meat, and superior to it in regard to both mechanical and mental performance. Such food, moreover, taxes our digestive organs decidedly less, and, in making us more contented and sociable, produces an amount of good difficult to estimate.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
34. “I could only achieve success in my life through self-discipline, and I applied it until my wish and my will became one.”
35. “In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
36. “By an irony of fate, my first employment was as a draughtsman. I hated drawing; it was for me the very worst of annoyances. Fortunately, it was not long before I secured the position I sought, that of chief electrician to the telephone company.”
37. “If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn’t sweat as much.”
Also Read: 21 Life Changing Bhagavad Gita Quotes with Explanation and Meaning
38. “In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
39. “I have already demonstrated, by crucial tests, the practicability of signaling by my system from one to any other point of the globe, no matter how remote, and I shall soon convert the disbelievers.”
40. “Modern science says: ‘The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.’ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
41. “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.”
42. “The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.”
43. “All knowledge or form conception is evoked through the medium of the eye, either in response to disturbances directly received on the retina or to their fainter secondary effects and reverberations. Other sense organs can only call forth feelings which have no reality of existence and of which no conception can be formed.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
44. “It seems that I have always been ahead of my time. I had to wait nineteen years before Niagara was harnessed by my system, fifteen years before the basic inventions for wireless which I gave to the world in 1893 were applied universally.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
45. “I myself eschew all stimulants. I also practically abstain from meat.”
46. “Electrical science has disclosed to us the more intimate relation existing between widely different forces and phenomena and has thus led us to a more complete comprehension of Nature and its many manifestations to our senses.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
47. “My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain.”
48. “A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
Nikola Tesla on His Legacy
49. “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.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
50. “What the result of these investigations will be the future will tell; but whatever they may be, and to whatever this principle may lead, I shall be sufficiently recompensed if later it will be admitted that I have contributed a share, however small, to the advancement of science.” – Nikola Tesla Quotes
If you liked Nikola Tesla Quotes…. then you might enjoy:
- 100 Bitter-sweet Existential Quotes by famous Philosophers that’ll hit you Deep
- 105 Wittiest Mark Twain Quotes on Travel, Politics, Education, Patriotism & Humor
- 75 Best Self-Love Quotes that’ll Inspire You to Love Yourself
- 100 Short Love Quotes from Best Romantic Movies, Songs & Famous Writers