by Jerry Agar

Even the most dedicated person can get discouraged when his ideas are rejected.  Advancing the reality of the supremacy of liberty and freedom over the soft, seductive promise of big government can be weary work.

Radio consultant Lee Abrams sent me a list of infamous rejections from the past.  I find it inspiring to learn that people who knew they were right persevered against the advice of experts and, in these cases, prevailed.  I hope it helps you as well.

• "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" - David Sarnoff's Associates in rejecting a proposal for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." - A Yale University professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

• "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H.M. Warner (Warner Brothers) before rejecting proposal for movies with sound in 1927.

• "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." - Rejection letter to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

• "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." - Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929, right before the 1929 Stock Market Crash.

• "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

•  "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." - Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

• "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981, rejecting proposal for larger computer memory.  (He obviously thought better of it.)

• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.

• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell,Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

• "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." - Marshall Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, 1911.
  

• "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." - Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

• "I do not believe the introduction of motor-cars will ever affect the riding of horses." - Mr. Scott-Montague, MP, in 1903 in the United Kingdom (I owe this to quote Ben Broadbent).

• "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876 (I owe this quote to Yasemin Urkmez).

• "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.'" - Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

• "Who the hell wants to copy a document on plain paper?" - 1940 Rejection Letter to Chester Carlson, inventor of the XEROX machine (Note: In fact, over 20 companies rejected his "useless" idea between 1939 and 1944. Even the National Inventors Council dismissed it).