yesterday

"But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced
Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the
microchip.

"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 telephone will be used to inform people that a telegram has been sent."
- Alexander Graham Bell.

"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.

"Can't dance. Can't act. Can sing a little."
- Notes from Fred Astaire's screen test.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"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 3M "Post-It" Pads

"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.

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.

"This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He's doomed."
- Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
- Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube.

"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.

"If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one."
- Dr. W.C. Heuper of the National Cancer Institute, as quoted in the New York Times on April 14, 1954.

"For the majority of People, smoking has a beneficial effect."
- Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles surgeon, quoted in "Newsweek", Nov. 8th 1963.

"Apple... What a Dumb Name for a computer company."
- Glen A. Williamson, deciding between a Sol-20 computer kit & an Apple II, 1979.

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