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Nikola Tesla lived outside of society and thus followed no rules. Frequently ridiculed and ostracised by society and his peers, Tesla even had to resort to ditch digging to get by. But he never lost his vision for how he could contribute to the world.
His inventive mind was so far ahead of his time and his creative mind knew no bounds.
This is an extract from the New York Tribune of July 9th, 1933 :
In an interview, Nikola Tesla was asked how it felt to be so far ahead of his time that he was subject to attacks upon his sanity. Tesla replied that he had long since ceased to regard it as important –
“I live a life of seclusion. The opinion of the world does not affect me. I have placed as the real values in my life what follows after I am dead, although it has been given to me to live to see those things which were once scouted accepted as scientific dogmas.”
“The thing that recompenses me is that my name shall be known to generations yet unborn for the Tesla Coil, Tesla Motor, and perhaps my name will be connected to the absolutely new source of power I am about to present to the world. It is this thought in which I find happiness and health. A pioneer does not apply his energies in the way the world is going. Rather, he goes against the current. He lets them call him a lunatic. He lets them trample him—if I should ever tell you the inside story of how I had been trampled—but never mind, it was all good for me. I have come through it. I am able to work harder than I worked a year ago. I work now with greater energy and get results more easily than ever before in my life.”
“…After all, they have called me a lunatic before. What is one last time?“
– Nikola Tesla
