There is no memory or retentive faculty based on lasting impression. What we designate as memory is but increased responsiveness to repeated stimuli.
Interpretation
Memory is not a reliable retention of experiences, but rather a heightened response to familiar stimuli.
In this quote, Nikola Tesla reflects on the nature of memory, suggesting that what we commonly understand as memory is not a perfect recording of past events, but rather an enhanced ability to respond to familiar situations due to repeated exposure. This perspective challenges the idea of memory as an infallible storage of information, highlighting instead the fluid and responsive nature of how we recall experiences.
In practice
In a psychology class discussing the nature of memory and perception.
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.
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.
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.
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.
Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?
The only boundaries we have are in form. There are no obstacles in thought.
We cannot let our angels go; we do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.
Deep within every human being there still lives the anxiety over the possibility of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the millions and millions in this enormous household. One keeps this anxiety at a distance by looking at the many round about who are related to him as kin and friends, but the anxiety is still there, nevertheless, and one hardly dares think of how he would feel if all this were taken away.
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