Invention
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What we need, gentlemen,
is a completely brand new idea that has been thoroughly tested.
|
 New Yorker Cartoon
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Innovation makes enemies of all
those who prospered under the old regime, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from
those who would prosper under the new.
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Niccolo Machiavelli
(1469 - 1527)
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If a man will begin with certainties,
he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in
certainties.
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Francis Bacon
(1561-1626)
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Any new theory first is attacked as absurd;
then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it seems to be important,
so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it!
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William James(1842-1910)
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Man errs so long as he strives.
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Johann von Goethe
(1749-1832)
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The secret of good direction
does not consist of solving problems, but in identifying them.
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Lawrence A. Appley (1904-1997)
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Every good laboratory consists
of first rate men working in great harmony to insure the progress of science; but down at the
end of the hall is an unsociable, wrong-headed fellow working on unprofitable lines, and in
his hands lies the hope of discovery.
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Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)
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Creativity is so delicate a
flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.
Any of us will put out more ideas if our efforts are appreciated.
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Alexander F. Osborn
(1888-1966)
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The universe is full of magical things
patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
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Eden Phillpotts
(1862-1960)
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A hen is only an egg's way of
making another egg.
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Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
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Research is to see what everybody
else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.
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Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)
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Everything should be made as
simple as possible, but not simpler.
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Albert
Einstein (1879-1955)
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Genius is one percent inspiration
and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
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Thomas Alva Edison
(1847-1931)
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Experts ranked in serried rows,
Filled the enormous plaza full, But only one is there who knows,
And he's the man who fights the bull. [In more ways than one. -ed.]
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Robert Graves
(1895-1985)
|
|
The quotations below are from: Innovation
Management Network, Volume 5, Number 57, (June 16, 1998) formerly available from the mint
server at McMaster University |
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There is no reason anyone
would want a computer in the home.
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Ken Olsen,
president, chairman and
founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977
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640K ought
to be enough [computer memory] for anybody.
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Bill Gates,
1981
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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.
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The editor in charge of business
books for Prentice Hall,
1957
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Computers in the
future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
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Popular Mechanics'
forecasting
relentless march of science, 1949
|
So we went to
Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of
your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you.
We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they
said 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't
need you. You haven't got through college yet.'
|
To Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak,
Apple Computer's founders
|
This 'telephone' has
too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value to us.
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Western
Union internal memo, 1876
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The concept is
interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea
must be feasible.
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Yale professor's response to what
became Federal
Express
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Heavier-than-air
flying machines are impossible.
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Lord Kelvin,
president of the
Royal Society, 1895
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Jim Cook
