HUMOUR BOOK

"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.



"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

-----Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949



"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax."

-----William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.



"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

-----Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943



"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



"Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”

-----Dr Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London



"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

-----Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977



"No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free.”

-----King William I of Prussia, on hearing of the invention of trains, 1864.



"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.



"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, president, Royal Society, 1895.



"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”

-----New York Times, 1936



“Democracy will be dead by 1950.”

-----John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936



"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.



"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training."

-----Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.



"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.



"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.



"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

-----Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.



"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".

-----Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872



"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

-----Bill Gates, 1981



"$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft."

-----IBM, 1982



"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"

-----H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.