The cocktail party is easily the worst invention since castor oil.
Inventions - Inventors Quotes
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.
Very interesting, Whittle, my boy, but it will never work. (Response of Cambridge aeronautical engineering professor, shown Frank Whittle’s plan for a jet engine)
Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried.
This is the man who, as far as inventions go, thinks Wonderbra and La Perla are up there with the wheel.
The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible. (Response of a Yale professor, shown Fred Smith’s early vision of Federal Express)
A remarkable characteristic of the Americans is the manner in which they have applied science to modern life – In England an inventor is regarded almost as a crazy man, and in too many instances invention ends in disappointment and poverty. In America an inventor is honored, help is forthcoming, and the exercise of ingenuity, […]
Who, when he saw the first sand or ashes by a casual intensiveness of heat melted into metalline form, rugged with excrescences and clouded with impurities, would have imagined that in this formless lump lay concealed so many conveniences of life as would in time constitute a great part of the happiness of the world? […]
What, sir, you would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense. (to Robert Fulton)
Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
