If I was giving a presentation that I suspected would bring skepticism or was presenting something fairly "forward thinking", I had a powerpoint foil I'd put up front with a couple of good ones chosen from a long list I had compiled. I'd put it up on screen while I spent a few minutes wrapping up my prep, let the audience read them and invariably remark amongst themselves how little we really know. Thanks for doing the hard part for me folks!
Here's a couple of financial ones, some misc, and a few computer related ones.
"Large profits can be made in common stocks. Large losses can be made in common stocks." – Peter Lynch
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." – Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University (1929)
"Computers in the future may perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons. (Popular Mechanics forecasting the development of computer technology, 1949)
"I see no advantage whatsoever to the graphical user interface." (Bill Gates, 1983)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 on seeing the first mainframe computer)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."(Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of now defunct Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates, 1981
"I have travelled 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." (Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.)
"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 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 1920's.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (HM Warner, Warner Bros, 1927.)
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." (Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962.)
"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.)
"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, US 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 SurgeonExtraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.)
