"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."-- Decca Records, rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"I have no political ambitions for myself or my children."-- Joseph P. Kennedy, 1936
"Computers in the future may perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons."-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the development of computer technology, 1949
"Everything that can be invented, has been invented."-- Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, 1899
"I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea."-- H.G. Wells, British Novelist, 1901
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."-- Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French military strategist & future World War I Commander, 1911
"Believe me, Germany is unable to wage war."-- Former British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, August 1, 1934
"The horse is here to stay, but the auto is only a novelty -- a fad."-- A president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford's lawyer) not in invest in the Ford Motor Company, 1903. Rackham ignored the advice, bought $5000 worth of stock and sold it several years later for $12.5 million.
"Nobody now fears that a Japanese fleet could deal an unexpected blow on our Pacific possessions. Radio makes surprise impossible."-- Josephus Daniels, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, October 16, 1922
"What use could this company make of an electrical toy?-- Western Union president William Orton, rejecting A.G. Bole's offer to sell his struggling telephone company to Western Union for $100,000 (date unknown)
"TV won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first 6 months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."-- Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, 1946