If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said read more

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.

I shall look forward to a pleasant time.

I shall look forward to a pleasant time.

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible. read more

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 Corp.).

Wonderful, wonderful this death.

Wonderful, wonderful this death.

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

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

I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works.

I desire to leave to the men that come after me a remembrance of me in good works.

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular? read more

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.

Death is a law and not a punishment. Three things ought to console us for giving up life; the friends read more

Death is a law and not a punishment. Three things ought to console us for giving up life; the friends whom we have lost, the few persons worth of being loved whom we leave behind us, and finally the memory of our stupidities and the assurance that they are now going to stop.

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.