42 Prediction Quotes to Help You Trust Your Crazy Ideas again..

In 1973 when along with 3 or 4 others (because neat ideas don’t usually occur to one person alone), France had 7 million telephone lines. It was 2 years later before a private individual was able to benefit from the precious instrument. That was back in the days of 2-digit phone numbers (as in the song “22 à Asnières” made famous by Fernand Reynaud)… references that probably mean nothing to many, nowadays… By 1981, France had 28 million phone lines… In the 80’s, only the privileged few had a phone in their car; much like having a GSM in 1993. I am merely reminding the reader of that things change. A technology that seems impossible at a particular time in history, becomes “run-of-the-mill” later. Many, no less than mere nobodies, have fallen into this trap :

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
– H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
– Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development.”
– Julius Frontinus, 1st century A.D.

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

“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’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.

“Space travel is bunk.”
– Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of Britain, 1957, two weeks
before the launch of Sputnik

“All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to life but
doomed to failure from an engineering standpoint.”
– editor of ‘The Times’ of London, 1905

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
– Bill Gates (1955-), in 1981

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction”.
– Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
– Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“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.

“I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly
for fifty years . . . Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.”
– Wilbur Wright, 1908

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

“A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument
it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.”
– Leonardo da Vinci, ‘Treatise on the Flight of Birds,’ 1505

“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

“You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a
bonfire under her deck…I have no time for such nonsense.”
– Napoleon, commenting on Fulton’s Steamship

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

“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
– Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the Audion tube and a father of radio, 25 February, 1967.

“The aeroplane will never fly.”
– Lord Haldane, Minister of War, Britain, 1907

“I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make air instead of sea voyages;
and at length find our way to the moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere.”
– Lord Byron, 1882

“A certain Liquor which they call Coffee…which will soon intoxicate the brain.”
– G. W. Parry (1601)

“Within the next few decades, autos will have folding wings that can be
pread when on a straight stretch of road so that the machine can take to the air.”
– Eddie Rickenbacker, ‘Popular Science,’ July 1924

“But what … is it good for?”
– Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting
on the microchip.

“Landing and moving about on the moon offers so many serious problems for
human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them.”
– Science Digest, 1948

“Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine.”
– R.S. Lambert, Canadian Broadcaster, 1936

“The ordinary ‘horseless carriage’ is at present a luxury for the wealthy;
and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of
course, come into as common use as the bicycle.”
– Literary Digest, 1899

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to
breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
– Dr. Dionysus Lardner, 1793-1859

“I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the
existence of atoms and other such dogmas.”
– Ernst Mach (1838-1916)

“Physics, as we know it, will be over in six months.”
– Max Born, 1928

“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”
– Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

“Radio has no future.”
– Lord Kelvin

“Even considering the improvements possible…the gas turbine could
hardly be considered a feasible application to airplanes because of the
difficulties of complying with the stringent weight requirements.”
– U. S. National Academy Of Science, 1940

“I must confess that my imagination, in spite even of spurring, refuses to
see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and
foundering at sea.”
– H. G. Wells, 1901

“Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody
will use it, ever. It’s too dangerous. . . it could kill a man as quick as a bolt
of lightning. Direct current is safe.”
– Thomas Edison

“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

“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, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard,
and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need 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


And the list goes on…In fact, initially innovation is likened to heresy, later it is
violently criticized, then finally recognized as an essential reality… The duration
of each stage depends on the resistance to change of the groups concerned.

Try to look beyond what conventional wisdom dictates, and there lies the greatest
achievements of the human race.

TRUST YOUR CRAZY IDEAS.. NO MATTER HOW FOOLISH YOU LOOK TODAY..