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If we use our fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful, and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations. The heat of the sun's rays represents an immense amount of energy vastly in excess of waterpower...The sun's energy controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land.
Nikola Tesla
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the need to harness solar energy instead of depleting our natural resources.

Nikola Tesla argues that relying on traditional energy sources is unsustainable and wasteful. He advocates for the utilization of the sun's vast energy potential to create sustainable resources, such as lakes and fertile land, which will benefit future generations. Tesla's vision underscores the importance of renewable energy as a solution to the environmental challenges we face.

Themes

Solar EnergySustainabilityRenewable ResourcesEnvironmentFuture Generations

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about renewable energy policy, one might quote Tesla to advocate for solar investment.

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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.
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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.
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