- But what ... is it good for?
- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems
Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
- Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
- We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the
way out.
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
- Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), president, Royal
Society, 1895.
- I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his
face and not Gary Cooper.
- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the
leading role in "Gone With The Wind."
- A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market
research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not
soft and chewy cookies like you make.
Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs.
Fields' Cookies.
- If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the
experiment. The literature was full of examples that
said you can't do this.
- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the
unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.
- 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.
- The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial
value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in
particular?
- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his
urgings for investment in the radio in the
1920s.
- The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in
order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be
feasible.
- A Yale University management professor in
response to Fred Smith's paper proposing
reliable overnight delivery service.
(Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
- I have traveled the length and breadth of this country
and talked with the best people, and I can assure you
that data processing is a fad that won't last out the
year.
- The editor in charge of business books for
Prentice Hall, 1957
- Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently
high plateau.
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale
University, 1929.
- Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.
- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at
Toulouse, 1872
- The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be
shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.
- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon,
appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to
Queen Victoria 1873.
- Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try
and find oil? You're crazy.
- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist
to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
- So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this
amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and
what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it
to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll
come work for you.' And they said, you. You haven't
got through college yet.'
- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on
attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in
his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
- Professor Goddard does not know the relation between
action and reaction and the need to have something
better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems
to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high
schools.
- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert
Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
- I recommend a book by Arthur C. Clarke called _Profiles
of the Future_. The early chapters include "The failure
of nerve" and "The failure of imagination" which
discuss the problems associated with prediction.
- "Space travel," said the Astronomer Royal of Great
Britain in 1956, "is utter bilge."
- 'Twas founded be th' Puritans to give thanks f'r bein'
presarved fr'm th' Indyans, an'...we keep it to give
thanks we are presarved fr'm th' Puritans.
- Mr. Dooley's Opinions [1900]. Thanksgiving
Finley Peter Dunne [Mr. Dooley] 1867-1936
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