(Offering #4) Update July 2009
Who can’t resist a good quote? Since I’m focused on the topic of Change Management, I’ll maintain that focus here.
Here’s how this page will work, I’ll post a new collection every Tuesday. Now and the…
If you have some favourites, then post them in the comments. I’ll add them to my master file and they’ll appear here sooner or later. And don’t worry if I repeat some quotes from week to week. Nobody’s keeping score.
I must admit I’m partial to a particular type of quote – the one where an expert states something is impossible.
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“Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.”
Dr. Lee DeForest, Inventor of the triode amplifer radio valve, 1906
“The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosive.”
Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project
“There is no likehood man can ever tap the power of the atom.”
Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”
Popular Mechanics, 1949
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
“But what is it good for?”
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson, Founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
“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.
“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
“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”
Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
If you’d like to read an article that delves into the thinking behind this type of limited view of the future… I can offer this for you. Enjoy
Peter de Jager
I know the following commen’t doesnt exactly have the word change in it, and so it won’t make its way into your collection. But nontheless, its my all time favorite.
‘The strength of a genie comes from being in a bottle.’
-Richard wilbur
Here is my favorite:
“Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized
In the first it is ridiculed,
in the second it is opposed,
in the third it is regarded as self-evident”
Arthur Schopenhauer
The change quote I love is reputed to be from Catherine the Great of Russia,
“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls to shelter and some build windmills”
Sort of gets to the mindset thing eh?
Annon ?
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change the things I can.
And the wisdom to know the difference!
My favorite
If voting could Change something, it would be illegal.
Graffiti on a Montreal building
because it is so true. Also proves grafitti is not always miindless junk.
My favorite has alot to do with change.
Comes from my Mom (although she didn’t write it)
“Shit Happens!”
Another quote (from my office wall) that seems in syncwith your list:
“A true voyage of discovery does not consist of seeking new landscapes but rather of seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
Here’s one that has everything to do with change (original source is unknown, but clearly a wit of stature!)
“To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.”
In the above website is this collection of quotes that I like:
http://members.shaw.ca/keith.cowan/quotes.htm
Like this piece, it has not been updated lately )but then many of these quotes are timeless.)
Yes, it is amusing when experts are proven wrong about what that say is impossible. And yet, I hesitate to laugh too loud. We all make predictions, and most of us fare no better at getting everything right.
Further, experts sometimes predict things correctly; saddly, not everything is possible.
Certainty is the thing about which we should be least certain about.