“What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…”
My Inventions (1919)
Context: While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.
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Nikola Tesla 125
Serbian American inventor 1856–1943Related quotes
A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)
Source: My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Context: A state of human life vaguely defined by the term "Universal Peace," while a result of cumulative effort through centuries past, might come into existence quickly, not unlike a crystal suddenly forms in a solution which has been slowly prepared. But just as no effect can precede its cause, so this state can never be brought on by any pact between nations, however solemn. Experience is made before the law is formulated, both are related like cause and effect. So long as we are clearly conscious of the expectation, that peace is to result from such a parliamentary decision, so long have we a conclusive evidence that we are not fit for peace. Only then when we shall feel that such international meetings are mere formal procedures, unnecessary except in so far as they might serve to give definite expression to a common desire, will peace be assured.
To judge from current events we must be, as yet, very distant from that blissful goal. It is true that we are proceeding towards it rapidly. There are abundant signs of this progress everywhere. The race enmities and prejudices are decidedly waning.
Interview with The Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/news/resources/n-ram-interviews-sri-lankas-president-mahinda-rajapaksa/article906009.ece, November 23, 2010.
Meaning and Purpose of History in Volume I
Historical essays (2001)
1970s, Second Inaugural Address (1973)
The Maine Woods http://thoreau.eserver.org/mewoods.html, Ktaadn, Pt. 6 (1848)
The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm, Mariner Books (1985), pp. 13-14. First published in 1948.
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“Perhaps if all the peoples of the world understand what war really means,we would eliminate it.”
Free the Airwaves! (2002)
Speech https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1916-12-19/debates/8572103d-700a-487a-8dd1-c0a99679cc6d/PrimeMinisterSStatement in the House of Commons (19 December 1916)
Later life