A revolution is impossible before it is inevitable. Similarly, technology seems impossible to most people until someone crazy comes along and makes it happen. Before you say “I don’t think it can be done”, consider these quotes:

• “I am tired of all this sort of thing called science here… We have spent millions in that sort of thing for the last few years, and it is time it should be stopped.” – Simon Cameron, U.S. Senator, on the Smithsonian Institution, 1901
• “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), in a talk given to a 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston.
• “We have reached the limits of what is possible to achieve with computer technology” – computer scientist John Von Neuman, 1949
• “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932
• “There will never be a bigger plane built.” – A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people.
• “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” – he president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
• “Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” – Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880.
• “Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” – -Dr. Dionysius Lardner, professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, 1823
• “Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” – Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946
• “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” – Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921
• “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” – IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959
• “A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” – he New York Times, 1936
• “We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.” – Simon Newcomb, Canadian-born American astronomer, 1888
• “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” – Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883

Honourable mention for bad timing:
“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” – Irving Fisher, economics professor at Yale University, Oct 1929 (about a week before the Great Depression)