1. 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

2. Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it an impossibility—a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.
Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube

3. Radio has no future.
Lord Kelvin, Victorian physicist and President of the Royal Society, c. 1897

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

5. Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911

6. Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

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

8. There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation) at the Convention of the World Future Society in Boston in 1977