Advertise Here

Problem Solving | Idea Generation | Training and Education | News and Information
quote-amaze logo
Fools

A fool is consumed by his own lips.
—Ecclesiastes 10:12

People thinking creatively and those in the throes of intense creative problem solving sometimes let fly from their mouths words they wish they had swallowed. Below you’ll find great inventors denying invention, innovators poo-pooing innovation, creative giants speaking very un-creatively. We all make mistakes—from Albert Einstein to Sarah Palin. The true fools, though, are those who still stand by what they have said.

To view unmitigated mindless rantings, visit Quacks. For blatant ignorance from the mouths of the politically powerful, visit Punks.


The talking motion picture will not supplant the regular silent motion picture. There is such a tremendous investment to pantomime pictures that it would be absurd to disturb it.
Thomas Edison, 1913


Old science is not good science to teach only as a fact.
—Kathy Martin, retired lower elementary school and science teacher CITATION


Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.
—William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, English scientist, 1899


With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the US market.
—Business Week, August 2, 1968


There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
Ken Olsen, Digital Equipment President, 1977


No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.
—U.S. Secretary of Navy, December 4, 1941


This case is a loser.
Johnnie Cochran


There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races from living together in terms of social and political equality.
Abraham Lincoln

Top

Launch Pad

End

Dick Cheney and I do not want this nation to be in a recession. We want anybody who can find work to be able to find work.
George W. Bush


This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war—it is the last war!
—H. G. Wells, 1914


We don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.
—Hewlett Packard’s excuse to Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers


We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.
George W. Bush


640K ought to be enough for anybody.
—Bill Gates


The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.
Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project


...a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.
—Alfred A. Knopf reader’s report on The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 15


As for that V.P. talk all the time, I tell ya, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me: What is it exactly that the V.P. does every day?
Sarah Palin, to CNBC’s Larry Kudlow

Top

Launch Pad

End

Who wants to hear actors talk?
—H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927


Truth will become the hallmark of the Nixon administration.
—Herbert Klein, White House communications director 20


Christianity and Democracy are inevitably enemies.
Rousas Rushdoony


I think there is a world market for about five computers.
Thomas J. Watson, Chairman IBM


Gentlemen, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.
Herbert Hoover, June 1930


The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.
Dan Quayle


We’re going to have the best educated American people in the world.
Dan Quayle


It’s always better to take advantage of your chances as they come along.
—Lee Harvey Oswald


He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge.
—George Pataki, of George W. Bush


You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.
—Emmeline Snively to Marilyn Monroe, 1944

Top

Launch Pad

End

God himself could not sink this ship. The Titanic is unsinkable.
—White Star Line


While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.
Lee DeForest


Hemingway was a jerk.
Harold Robbins


It is envy that makes a Communist, Nazi, or Moslem Terrorist. It is the fear of being envied that makes a liberal.
—Jack Wheeler SOURCE


Far too noisy, my dear Mozart. Far too many notes.
—Emperor Ferdinand of Austria on The Marriage of Figaro, 1786


I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made.
Dan Quayle


Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.
—Lt. Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon, 1861


People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
Dan Quayle


Knowing of your congregation’s deep involvement in the major social and constitutional issues of our country is a great inspiration to me.
—Walter Mondale to Rev. Jim Jones


We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
—Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

Top

Launch Pad

End

Things are more like they are now than they’ve ever been before.
—Gerald Ford


All forms of leftism and liberalism are based on an atavistic belief in Black Magic. All are based on the primitive fear of the envious Evil Eye.
—Jack Wheeler SOURCE


Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
George W. Bush


What a waste it is to lose one’s mind, or not to have a mind.
Dan Quayle


The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
Henry Kissinger


You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.
—Jim Denny
Manager of "Grand Ole Opry," to Elvis Presley, 1954


What has America done for anybody?
—John Walker Lindh


The future will be better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle


...too racy.
—Alfred A. Knopf reader’s report on Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 17

Top

Launch Pad

End

When I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame.
Dan Quayle


Facts are stupid things.
—Ronald Reagan


Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.
Julius Sextus Frontinus


People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
—Darryl Zanuck


Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.
Dan Quayle


The singer will have to go.
—Eric Easton, on the Rolling Stones


I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy, but that could change.
Dan Quayle


An orgy of vulgar noise.
—Louis Spohr, on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, 1808


Usually, if you wait long enough, someone will ask your question.
—US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas


Airplanes are interesting toys, but they are of no military value whatsoever.
—Marechal Ferdinand Fock, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

Top

Launch Pad

End

Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.
Dan Quayle


We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.
George W. Bush


I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.
Bill Clinton


This is still a dangerous world. It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mential [sic] losses.
George W. Bush


You will find it a distinct help... if you know and look as if you know what you are doing.
—IRS training manual


Always chew your pretzels before you swallow.
George W. Bush


Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.
Dan Quayle


I don’t need bodyguards.
—Jimmy Hoffa


People are becoming too intelligent ever to have another war.
—Henry Ford, 1928


I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.
—Editor of the San Francisco Examiner to Rudyard Kipling, 1889

Top

Launch Pad

End

I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.
—Gary Cooper, after turning down the lead role in Gone With The Wind


Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.
Dan Quayle


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.
—Boeing engineer after first flight of the 247, twin- engine, ten-passenger plane


I understand small business growth. I was one.
—George W. Bush


It will be years—not in my time—before a woman will become prime minister.
—Margaret Thatcher, 1974


Thistelephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.
—Western Union memo, 1876


A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and evidence tell me it’s not.
—Ronald Reagan 14


[It’s] time for the human race to enter the solar system.
Dan Quayle


I believe it is peace in our time.
—Neville Chamberlain

Top

Launch Pad

End

No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
—David Sarnoff’s associates’ response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920


Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
Dan Quayle


...impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.
—Alfred A. Knopf reader’s report on Animal Farm by George Orwell 16


The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff.
George W. Bush 19


We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.
Dan Quayle


Childrens do learn.
—George W. Bush before a group of New York school children, September 26, 2007 Video


Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.
William Golding


The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued to the screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it. Therefore the showmen are convinced that for this reason, if not other, television will never be a serious competitor of broadcasting.
—New York Times editorial, March 1939


The Constitution has never recognized a fundamental right to engage in extra-marital sex.
—Charles Rosenthal Jr., District Attorney, Harris County, Texas SOURCE


It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it.
—Unnamed American major, Vietnam 18

Top

Launch Pad

End

Just a passing fad.
—Phil Wrigley, on the future of night baseball


I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
William Bennett CITATION


Quote of the Moment
Create Your Own Quotation
Comments, corrections, and new quotations

 
go-create-dot-com logo
© Copyright 1998-2012 Peter Lloyd