Tom Eagar’s Favorite Quotes
“The only problem I really have in the outfield is with fly balls.” --Carmelo Martinez, San Diego Padres outfielder
“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…” --General John B. Sedgwick, last words, Battle of Spotsylvania, 1864
“No matter what happens, the U.S.Navy is not going to be caught napping.” --Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, 4 December 1941 (just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor”
“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.” --Decca Recording Co., executive, turning down the Beatles in 1962
“A severe depression like that of 1920-1921 is outside the range of probability.” --The Harvard Economic Society, 16 November 1929
“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.” --Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
“The phonograph…is not of any commercial value.” --Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor of the Phonograph 1880
“With over fifty foreign cars already on ale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market for itself.”
“I think there is a world market for about five computers.” --Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” --Lord Kelvin
“If you ask me a question I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.” --Yogi Berra
“Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.” --Will Rogrs
“The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.” --Mark Twain
“The Edsel is here to stay.” --Henry Ford II, 1957
“The other teams could make trouble for us if they win.” --Yogi Berra
“I wish I had an answer to that, because I’m tired of answering that question.” --Yogi Berra
“Even though we have fallen behind on the engine development, I feel confident that we will have an engine there for the first flight.” --Program manager to DoD Review Board
“A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician.” --Samuel Johnson
“Money won’t buy happiness, but it will pay the salaries of a large research staff to study the problem.” --Bill Vaughan
“We have a lot of players in their first year. Some of them are in their last year.” --Bill Walsh, Coach, San Francisco 49ers
“Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.” --Yogi Berra
“I read part of it all the way through.” --Samuel Goldwyn
“It seems to me that no soothsayer should be able to look at another soothsayer without laughing.” --Cicero to Roman Senate
“Before I came here I was confused about this subject. Having listened to your lecture I am still confused, but on a higher level.” --Enrico Fermi
“The president has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.” --Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live
“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.” --Former U.S. Vice-President, Dan Quayle
“When more and more people are thown out of work, unemployment results.” --Former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
“When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.” --Yogi Berra
“Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.” --Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
“The ceremony was rendered ludicrous by…the sallies of that poor President Lincoln…Anyone more dull and commonplace it would not be easy to produce.” --The London Times reporting on President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” --Wernher Von Braun
“Please do not shoot the pianist. He is going his best.” --Sign in Leadvile, CO Saloon, 1883
“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.” --Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle
“China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.” --Former French President Charles deGaulle
“I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.” --Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle
“We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees.” --Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks
“Prediction is very difficult – especially if it is about the future.” --Niels Bohr
“Baseball is 95% mental; the other half is physical.” --Yogi Berra
“Forts are gone, and no nation that has good sense will lay the keel of another battleship of the present type.” --Admiral William Fulham, J.S. Navy, in a letter to General William L. Mitchell, U.S. Army, 1921
“You can see a lot by observing.” --Yogi Berra
“Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.” --Yogi Berra
“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t go to yours.” --Yogi Berra
“Pair up in threes.” --Yogi Berra
“Never answer an anonymous letter.” --Yogi Berra
“The future ain’t what it used to be.” --Yogi Berra
“I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law.” --David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes
“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You couldn’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” --Sam Levenson
“The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.” --Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)
“The internet is a great way to get on the net.” --Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole
“If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all.” --Forestry expert Ronald Reaagan
“It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.” --Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle
“A scientist discovers that which exists. An engineer creates that which never was.” --Theodore von Karman
“Smoking kills, and if you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.” --Brooke Shields
“Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.” --General William Westmoreland during the war in Vietnam
“Traditionally, most of Australia’s imports come from overseas.” --Former Australian cabinet minister Keppel Enderbery
“The police are not here to create disorder. They’re here to preserve disorder.” --Former Chicago Mayor Daley during the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention
“The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It’s only the people that make them unsafe.” --Former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Chief Frank Rizzo
“They’re multipurpose. Not only do they put the clips on, but they take them off.” --Pratt & Whitney spokesperson explaining why the company charged the Air Force nearly $1,000 for an ordinary pair of pliers
“I’m not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president.” --Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents
“A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.” --Former U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen
“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” --A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corporation)
“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
“We trained hard…but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while prodoucing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.” --Petronius Arbiter, Greek Navy 210 B.C.
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” --Winston Churchill
“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.” --Marechal Ferdinand Foch. Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre
“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.” --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work
“So we sent 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
“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.” --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads
“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.” --Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies
“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in Gone With the Wind
“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 response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s
“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
“Computers in the future may weigh more than 1.5 tons.” --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science