******************
Words of great (and not so great) people
******************

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

"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.

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

"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 to be sent to nobody in particular?"
 -  David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging for investment in
the radio in the 1920's.

"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 unalterable condition of weight training."
 -  Response to Arthur Jones,  who solved the "unsolvable" by inventing the
 Nautilus.

"Drill for oil?  You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?
You're  crazy."
-  Riddlers 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.

"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.

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