Theoretically,
television may be feasible, but I consider it
an impossibility--a development which we should
waste little time dreaming about.
- Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode
ray tube
I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers.
- Thomas J. Watson, 1943, Chairman of the Board
of IBM
It doesn't matter what he does, he will never
amount to anything.
- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895
It will be years - not in my time - before a
woman will become Prime Minister.
- Margaret Thatcher, 1974
This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to
be seriously considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1876
We don't like their sound, and guitar music
is on the way out.
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles,
1962
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
- Bill Gates, 1981
Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous
fiction.
- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at
Toulouse, 1872
Computers in the future may weigh no more than
1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless
march of science, 1949
We don't need you. You haven't got through college
yet.
- Hewlett-Packard's rejection of Steve Jobs,
who went on to found Apple Computers
King George II said in 1773 that the American
colonies had little stomach for revolution.
An official of the White Star Line, speaking
of the firm's newly built flagship, the Titanic,
launched in 1912, declared that the ship was
unsinkable.
In 1939 The New York Times said the problem
of TV was that people had to glue their eyes
to a screen, and that the average American wouldn't
have time for it.
An English astronomy professor said in the early
19th century that air travel at high speed would
be impossible because passengers would suffocate.
Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have
no military value.
- Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911
With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here,
the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve
out a big slice of the U.S. market.
- Business Week, 1958
Whatever happens, the U.S. Navy is not going
to be caught napping.
- Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, on
December 4, 1941
Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently
high plateau.
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale
University, October 16, 1929.
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