"Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical values."
- Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865

"The phonograph is not of any commercial value."
- Thomas Edison, 1880

"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
-Thomas J. Watson, chair of IBM, 1943

"No possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly long distances through the air."
- Simon Newcomb, early 1900's

"The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty­a fad."
- President of the Michigan Savings bank, early 1900's

"It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement ofpassengers."
- American Road Congress, 1913

"Ruth made a great mistake when he gave up pitching. Working once a week he might have lasted a long time and become a great star."
- Tris Speaker

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
- Harry Warner, Warner Brothers Pictures, 1927

"No Civil War picture ever made a nickel." [on film rights to Gone With the Wind ]
- Irving Thalberg, MGM executive

"This is the biggest fool thing we have ever donethe [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." [Commenting to Truman about the Manhattan Project]
-Adm. Bill Leahy, 1945

"People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." [commenting on television]
- Daryl F. Zanuck, Head of 20th Century Fox, 1946

"Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little." [Reacting to Fred Astaire's screen test]
- RKO executive

"Space travel is utter bilge."
- Dr. Richard van der Riet Wolley, 1956

"They just don't have the right stuff. " [Upon turning down the Beatles for a recording contract.]
- Decca Records executive

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..." [Last words]
- Civil War General Sedgwick

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
- Ken Olsen, president of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."
· Albert Einstein, 1932

"Let me tell you something about this AIDS epidemic. There is not one single case of AIDS reported in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."
· Senator. Jesse Helms, October, 1988

"Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel."
· Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind

"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?
· The Quarterly Review, England, 1825

"He'll never be any good."
· Robert Irsay, owner of the Baltimore Colts,
trading newly drafted quarterback John Elway to the Denver Broncos, 1983

"The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad, a passing fancy."
· President of the Michigan Savings Bank to Henry For's lawyer

"While television may be theoretically feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."
· Le DeForest, American radio pioneer, 1926

"We did not conceive it possible that even Mr. Lincoln would produce a paper so slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile, not alone in literary construction, but in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp. He has outdone himself. He has literally come out of the little end of his own horn. By the side of it, mediocrity is superb."
· The Chicago Times, 1863, ccommenting on the Gettysburg Address

"Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan."
· Mary Sommerville, Radio Technologist and Pioneer, 1948

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this county and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
· Business book editor, Prentice Hall, late 1970's