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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that every individual operates within a larger cosmic framework, influencing and being influenced by distant realities.
Nikola Tesla's quote conveys the idea that each person is a critical component of the universe's intricate machinery. While individuals may feel limited by their immediate environment, their actions and existence resonate beyond their immediate surroundings, suggesting that our lives are interconnected within a vast web of influence that stretches infinitely.
In practice
During a lecture on the interconnectedness of life, one might quote Tesla to highlight how every action impacts the greater whole.
Even matter called inorganic, believed to be dead, responds to irritants and gives unmistakable evidence of a living principle within. Everything that exists, organic or inorganic, animated or inert, is susceptible to stimulus from the outside.
Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world.
The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.
The Secretary of Hygiene or Physical Culture will be far more important in the cabinet of the President of the United States who holds office in the year 2035 than the Secretary of War.
I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
One of the curious things about censorship is that no one seems to believe in it for himself. We want censorship to protect someone else— the young, the unstable, the suggestible, the stupid. I have never heard of anyone who wanted a film or speaker banned because otherwise he himself might be harmed.
When a man was hurt you took him to the maester, but what could you do when your maester was hurt?
There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. In the course of a single second, our senses of sight, of hearing, of smell, register (knowingly or not) a swarm of events and a parade of sensations and ideas passes through our head. Each instant represents a little universe, irrevocably forgotten in the next instant.
Your image isn't your character. Character is what you are as a person.
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father's palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as celestial joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the angels.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.