This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. (Internal memo, 1876)
Inventions - Inventors Quotes
Good enough for our transatlantic friends… but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men. (Regarding Thomas Edison’s light bulb, 1878)
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 of business books, 1957)
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. (Regarding Robert Goddard’s revolutionary work, 1921)
Young people tend to look down on my generation. They say that we didn’t have satellite TV, we didn’t have personal computers, we didn’t have the internet. They’re right. We “invented” them.
Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.
I invent nothing. I rediscover everything.
The right of an inventor to his invention is no monopoly – in any other sense than a man’s house is a monopoly.
Television won’t matter in your lifetime or mine. (Radio Times, 1936)
There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time: fire, the wheel, and central banking.
