If history has taught us nothing else. It has taught us to never pay too much attention to naysayers.
Its never been a matter if if something can be done. But in finding the way to do it.
“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
“Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” –Henry Morton, President of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880
“The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” –The President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.
“Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” –Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later
“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” –Associates of Edwin L. Drake mocking his idea to drill for oil, 1859.
“How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.” –Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat plans, 1800s
“Very interesting Whittle, my boy, but it will never work.” –Cambridge Aeronautics Professor, when shown Frank Whittle’s plan for the jet engine.
And one of my all time favorites
“To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.”
–Lee DeForest, Inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926.
