Bad Quotes

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
          --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science,
            1949

"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

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
          --Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

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

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
          --Bill Gates, 1981

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
          --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
            Equipment Corp., 1977

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
          --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"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.

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

"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.

"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 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.)

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

"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.

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