If these people could see what things are like now.
"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." - English scientist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, 1899
"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine." - Radio Times editor Rex Lambert, 1936
Everything that can be invented has been invented. - Charles Duell, Commisioner of the US office of Patents in 1899
The automobile will never, of course, be as popular as the bicycle. - The Literary Digest in 1899
This "telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. - A Western Union executive rejecting a new technology in 1876
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H.M. Warner, of Warner Bros., rejecting a new movie technology in 1927
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" - Thomas Watson, IBM Chairman, evaluating the potential of a new contraption in 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy. - Time Magazine, 1966
"An impractical sort of fad, and has no place in the serious job of postal transportation." - Second Assistant U.S. Post-master General Paul Henderson on airmail, 1922
"It's a bad joke that won't last. Not with winter coming." - Fashion designer CoCo Chanel on miniskirts, 1966
"You ought to go back to driving a truck." - Concert manager, firing Elvis Presley in 1954
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co., rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"It doesn't matter what he does, he will never amount to anything." - Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895
"It is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S." - A happily anonymous editor rejecting George Orwell's Animal Farm