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Who really said it

The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine

Spoken by Nikola Tesla 1856–1943 · Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer
Verified In copyright

Genuinely Tesla’s own words — spoken in an interview about the bitter fight over who really invented radio, and recorded in Dragislav L. Petković’s “A Visit to Nikola Tesla” (Politika, Belgrade, April 1927). Wikiquote ↗ lists it in its sourced section. The full remark opens “Let the future tell the truth …”; the familiar English wording is a translation from the Serbian.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine” Nikola Tesla, quoted in Dragislav L. Petković, "A Visit to Nikola Tesla," Politika (Belgrade), April 1927.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Underlying 1927 interview by Dragislav L. Petković; the familiar English translation appears in Margaret Cheney’s biographies (Touchstone / Simon & Schuster).). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Nikola Tesla — Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer. Theme: "The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Speaker
Nikola Tesla
Source
“A Visit to Nikola Tesla” (interview by Dragislav L. Petković)
First published
Politika, Belgrade, April 1927
Translation
From Serbian; English wording popularized via Margaret Cheney’s biographies

Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.

Tesla’s reflection on the patent controversies — above all the fight over priority in radio — that shadowed his later years. The target line is the closing sentence of the remark.

Wikiquote: Nikola Tesla (sourced section)

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its sourced section, citing Petković’s “A Visit to Nikola Tesla” (Politika, April 1927) and Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (2001), p. 230.
  • The remark is often merged with, or credited to, Tesla’s 1905 article “The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace” — but that article’s verified closing sentence ↗ ends “…only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle” and does not contain this line.
  • Quote sites such as Goodreads ↗ reproduce the line with no source at all, which is how the mis-sourcing spreads.
In copyright

The words were spoken in 1927 and the original Serbian interview is old enough to be public domain, but the exact English wording that circulates is a modern translation — most familiar from Margaret Cheney’s Tesla: Man Out of Time (1981/2001) and Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999), both in copyright. Treat the English rendering as in-copyright.

Fact-check

The words are Tesla’s — but the source usually isn’t

This is one of the rare feel-good Tesla lines that is actually his. The misattribution here is not the author but the source: the quote is repeatedly pinned to the wrong document.

Tesla’s 1905 article “The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires as a Means for Furthering Peace” common mix-up

Sites including Tesla Universe ↗ attach the “present is theirs” line to this 1905 essay, often bundled with the genuine 1905 sentence about greatness being “ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed.” But the article’s verified text ↗ ends at “…triumphantly from the struggle” — the target line is not in it.

Anonymous quote-card circulation

Aggregators such as Goodreads ↗ and AZQuotes reproduce the line credited only to “Nikola Tesla” with no citation, which is what lets the 1905 mix-up take hold.

The words are authentically Tesla’s — but they come from a 1927 Politika interview about the radio-patent fight, as catalogued by Wikiquote ↗, not from any 1905 article.

Context

Why he said it

By the 1920s Tesla was aging, in financial decline, and publicly overshadowed — Guglielmo Marconi had won a Nobel Prize and commercial fame for radio, while Tesla maintained that his own earlier patents came first. (The U.S. Supreme Court would side largely with Tesla’s priority in 1943, months after his death.)

Speaking to the Belgrade journalist Dragislav Petković in 1927, Tesla framed the whole dispute as a wager on posterity: let history, not the noise of the present, settle who had built the future. The line is less a boast than a bet that vindication would come later.

Let history, not the present, settle who built the future.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Purpose Time

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Nikola Tesla — Wikiquote (sourced)en.wikiquote.org

Lists the quote in its sourced section with the Politika 1927 / Cheney citation.
The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires… (1905)teslaresearch.jimdofree.com

Full text of the 1905 article the line is often wrongly attributed to — its real ending differs.
Tesla Universe — quote #26teslauniverse.com

Shows the common conflation: bundles the line with the 1905 article's genuine passage.
Goodreads — the quote, uncitedwww.goodreads.com

Typical source-free reproduction that fuels the mis-sourcing.
Nikola Tesla — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography and the radio-priority disputes that give the quote its context.

The author

About Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla

1856–1943 · Serbian-American inventor & electrical engineer

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a Serbian-American inventor and electrical engineer whose alternating-current system and pioneering work on wireless transmission helped build the modern electrical age. He spent his later decades insisting that history would vindicate his priority in radio and other inventions over rivals such as Marconi and Mihajlo Pupin — the fight that colours this remark.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Nikola Tesla, quoted in Dragislav L. Petković, “A Visit to Nikola Tesla,” Politika (Belgrade), April 1927; as quoted in Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (New York: Touchstone, 2001), 230.

MLA (9th ed.)

Petković, Dragislav L. “A Visit to Nikola Tesla.” Politika, Apr. 1927. Quoted in Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time, Touchstone, 2001, p. 230.

APA (7th ed.)

Petković, D. L. (1927, April). A visit to Nikola Tesla. Politika. As cited in M. Cheney (2001), Tesla: Man out of time (p. 230). Touchstone.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-present-is-theirs-the-future-for-which-i-really-worked

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