The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention.
It is the most important product of his creative brain.
Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs.
This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded.
But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements.

First thing he said.

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours.
But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.
Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy.
I never paid such a price.
On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts.

I do not rush into actual work.
When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination.
I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind.
It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop.
I even note if it is out of balance.
There is no difference whatever, the results are the same.
In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything.
When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain.
Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it.
In twenty years there has not been a single exception.
Why should it be otherwise? Engineering, electrical and mechanical, is positive in results.
There is scarcely a subject that cannot be mathematically treated and the effects calculated or the results determined beforehand from the available theoretical and practical data.
The carrying out into practise of a crude idea as is being generally done is, I hold, nothing but a waste of energy, money and time.

The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness thru all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways.
Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves.

III. My Later Endeavors The Discovery of the Rotating Magnetic Field

I was also passionately fond of mathematical studies and often won the professor’s praise for rapid calculation.
This was due to my acquired facility of visualizing the figures and performing the operations, not in the usual intuitive manner, but as in actual life.
Up to a certain degree of complexity it was absolutely the same to me whether I wrote the symbols on the board or conjured them before my mental vision

His ability to visualize also helped with math

during the whole first year I regularly started my work at three o’clock in the morning and continued until eleven at night, no Sundays or holidays excepted

Brief summary leading up to this:

• became very ill
• previously his dad wanted him to be clergy; Tesla wanted to study engineering
• Tesla, while sick, said that maybe if he could study engineering, he’d recover
• miraculously recovers
• goes to technical school
• wanted to surprise his parents, so works like from 03-23 (highlighted)
• gets impressive academic results, but dad doesn’t takes it lightly, maybe because he’d been receiving letters from professors that he should pull Tesla from the school, otherwise he’d die of overwork

IV. The Discovery of the Tesla Coil and Transformer

Edison said to me: “I have had many hard-working assistants but you take the cake.”

Praised by Edison for his hard work

Hard work is certainly a recurring theme for Tesla. Both smart and hard working.

VI. The Art of Telautomatics

We are automata entirely controlled by the forces of the medium being tossed about like corks on the surface of the water, but mistaking the resultant of the impulses from the outside for free will

Tesla on free will.