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French author and visionary Jules Verne, wrote a book in 1863 called Paris in the Twentieth Century.  The book presented what Verne thought Paris would be like around 1960.  He predicted that it would have electric lights, cars, phone lines, faxes.  His publisher believed that the public would laugh at it, and the book was not published until 1995.
When asked in a Discovery Channel documentary about the possibility of the validity of the phenomenon called "remote viewing," a scientist responded, "I wouldn't believe it even if it was true."
"... after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable."
- New York Times, January 16, 1880.

"Heavier- than- air flying machines are impossible."
- Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895.

"There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom"
- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize physicist, 1923.
"There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the moon because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the earth's gravity"
- Dr. F. R. Moulton, University of Chicago astronomer, 1932.

"There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one."
- Machiavelli (1513).

"Don't go where the path leads. Rather go where there is no path and leave a trail."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite."
- Bertrand Russell

"We are but cogwheels in the medium of the universe, and it is...an unavoidable consequence of the laws governing that the pioneer who is far in advance of his age is not understood and must suffer pain and disappointment and be content with the higher reward which is accorded to him by posterity."
- Nikola Tesla.

"Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt.
"All progress resulted from people who took unpopular positions."
- Adlai Stevenson

"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens).

"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: That all the dunces are in a confederacy against him!"  -Jonathan Swift.
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"
- Max Planck

"Every creative act involves a new innocence of perception liberated from the cataract of accepted belief."
- Unknown.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) - but 'That's funny...'"
- Isaac Asimov.
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