My will and desire to become one and the same

Possibilities of willpower and self-control are extremely attracted my vivid imagination, and I began to discipline yourself. If I had a cookie or a juicy apple that I was dying to eat, I gave it to another boy and had tantalizing, but with pain and satisfaction. If you stood in front of me some grueling task, I pounced on it again and again until you do. So I practiced day after day, from morning to night. First, it took a strong mental effort directed against the inclinations and desires, but years passed, and this contradiction weakened, and finally my will and desire to become one and the same. Such are they today, and in this lies the secret of my success. These experiences are so closely connected with my discovery of the rotating magnetic field, as if they constituted a substantial part of it; if not for her, I would never have invented the induction motor.

- Nikola Tesla. Some personal memories.