The History of Economic Thought
10AD Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments. (Julius Sextus Frontinus)
1486 So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value. (report to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain)
1895 [By the end of the 20th Century there will be a generation] to whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen quire of newspapers daily, to be constantly called to the telephone [and] to live half their time in a railway carriage or in a flying machine. (Max Nordau)
1903 The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented by new discoveries is exceedingly remote. (Albert Michelson)
1939 The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen: the average American family hasn't time for it. (The New York Times)
1943 I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. (?Thomas Watson of IBM)
1949 Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons. (Popular Mechanics)
1960 Few things seem to lie so far beyond the ordinary human ken than computers. To most people the notion that computers can be understood and operated by anyone other than a scientific genius seems wildly improbable. (The Times)
1965 [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do. (Herbert Simon)
1977 There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (Ken Olson of Digital Equipment)
1981 640K ought to be enough for anybody. (Bill Gates)
1983 No one knows what to do with seven windows at one time. (PC Week Magazine)
1994 I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least ten years. (Bill Gates)
1998 There isn't an Internet company in the world that's going to fail because of mistakes -- Internet companies make thousands of mistakes every week. (Candice Carpenter of iVillage)
(all taken from http://www.sysprog.net/quothist.html)
1486 So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value. (report to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain)
1895 [By the end of the 20th Century there will be a generation] to whom it will not be injurious to read a dozen quire of newspapers daily, to be constantly called to the telephone [and] to live half their time in a railway carriage or in a flying machine. (Max Nordau)
1903 The most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplemented by new discoveries is exceedingly remote. (Albert Michelson)
1939 The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen: the average American family hasn't time for it. (The New York Times)
1943 I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. (?Thomas Watson of IBM)
1949 Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons. (Popular Mechanics)
1960 Few things seem to lie so far beyond the ordinary human ken than computers. To most people the notion that computers can be understood and operated by anyone other than a scientific genius seems wildly improbable. (The Times)
1965 [By 1985], machines will be capable of doing any work Man can do. (Herbert Simon)
1977 There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. (Ken Olson of Digital Equipment)
1981 640K ought to be enough for anybody. (Bill Gates)
1983 No one knows what to do with seven windows at one time. (PC Week Magazine)
1994 I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least ten years. (Bill Gates)
1998 There isn't an Internet company in the world that's going to fail because of mistakes -- Internet companies make thousands of mistakes every week. (Candice Carpenter of iVillage)
(all taken from http://www.sysprog.net/quothist.html)