The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.
Interpretation
Tesla emphasizes the difference between clear and deep thinking, suggesting that clarity requires sanity, while depth can lead to insanity.
In this quote, Nikola Tesla critiques the scientists of his time for their tendency to engage in deep but unclear thinking. He suggests that while clear thinking is grounded in sanity, deep thinking can sometimes stray into irrationality, hinting at the fine line between genius and madness in scientific exploration and thought processes.
In practice
During a scientific conference discussing the nature of creative thinking.
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.
Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves.
Yes. I'm a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.
We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
At lunch Francis [Crick] winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life.
I would only have been too pleased if someone had asked me for my data. If you really believed in your data, you wouldn't mind someone looking at it. You should be able to respond that if you don't believe me go out and do the measurements yourself.
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