- Ken Olsen, CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

- Decca Recording Co. explaining why they rejected... The Beatles, 1962

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895

"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 outlast the year."

- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"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."

- A response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies

"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."

- New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's invention of the modern rocket engine, 1921

"It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime Minister."

- Margaret Thatcher, 1974

"640K (memory) ought to be enough for anybody."

- Bill Gates, 1981

"It doesn't matter what he does, he will never amount to anything."

- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."

- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, October 16, 1929

(LESSON: You have a good idea? Trust yourself and start working on it.)