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Sayings/Dichos

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."
Seneca

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."
Eddie Rickenbacker

"Try and fail, but don't fail to try."
Stephan Kaqqwa

"Only those who dare fail greatly can achieve greatly."
Robert F. Kennedy

"You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated."
Maya Angelou

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."
Vernon Sanders Law

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment."
Will Rogers

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Alan Kay

"Until most individuals recognize that sustained training and effort is a prerequisite for reaching expert levels of performance, they will continue to misattribute lesser achievement to the lack of natural gifts, and will thus fail to reach their own potential."
Anders Ericsson

"We don't think we'd do well in the cell phone business."
Steve Jobs, 2003

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

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

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

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
Decca Recording Co., rejecting the Beatles, 1962

"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
The head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

"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

"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

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

"Television won't last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."
Producer for 20th Century Fox, 1946

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

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television"

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"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 1920s

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

"Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize [the light bulb] as a conspicuous failure."
Chairman of the American Lighthouse Board, 1880

"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 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

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859