We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences
— My Inventions
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer, futurist and inventor known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
Born and raised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without taking a degree, then gained practical experience in telephony and at Continental Edison. In 1884 he moved to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen, and worked briefly at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before setting out on his own. With partners to finance his ideas, he set up laboratories and companies in New York. His AC induction motor and polyphase patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, became the cornerstone of the polyphase system. My Inventions is his most quoted work in our library.
Born and raised in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without taking a degree, then gained practical experience in telephony and at Continental Edison. In 1884 he moved to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen, and worked briefly at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before setting out on his own. With partners to finance his ideas, he set up laboratories and companies in New York. His AC induction motor and polyphase patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, became the cornerstone of the polyphase system. My Inventions is his most quoted work in our library.
Most quoted works
- My Inventions 3
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.
— My Inventions
The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.
— My Inventions
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter—for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
— Problem of Increasing Human Energy
Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.
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.
I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.
The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.
You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.
The idea of atomic energy is illusionary but it has taken so powerful a hold on the minds, that although I have preached against it for twenty-five years, there are still some who believe it to be realizable.