The most pessimistic writers. The most pessimistic forecasts for the future
Philosophy of healthy pessimism
It is pointless for a modern ordinary person from the crowd to talk about philosophy: who needs these philosophies, since the only concern is for the poor to survive, for the rich to make money? All these sophisticated philosophical constructs, terms, “things in themselves” and so on - try to figure it out. No wonder Hegel himself joked: “Only one person understood me, and even that one, to tell the truth, did not understand me.” It is also not easy to fully understand Schopenhauer, although his message to a philosophical understanding of the world and man is quite simple.
“Already at the age of 17,” Schopenhauer admitted, “I was so imbued with the bitterness of life, like Buddha in his youth, when he saw illness, old age, suffering and death...” Most people try not to focus their attention on all the negatives of life, not notice them, and especially not “chew” them in your head. But Schopenhauer, on the contrary, immersed himself in them completely. In his works, he wrote “about the insignificance and sorrows of life,” which “both in the great and in the small - universal grief, continuous labor, incessant hustle and bustle, endless struggle, forced labor associated with extreme tension of all physical and spiritual forces.” He believed that man is “the main source of the most serious evils,” for man is homo homini lupusest (man is a wolf to man. - Yu.B.) and “the mutual relations of people are marked for the most part by untruth, extreme injustice, harshness and cruelty.”
Schopenhauer wrote all this long before the 20th century, before the First and Second World Wars, before the use of gases, before the explosions of atomic bombs, before Auschwitz and Dachau, before Babyn Yar, before the millions of victims of the Soviet Gulag. He seemed to have foreseen that human evil could rapidly increase. According to Schopenhauer, social optimism is without any foundation: “Progress is a dream of the 19th century, just as the resurrection from the dead was a dream of the 10th century; Every time has its own dreams.”
“Everything is beautiful only as long as it doesn’t affect you...” said Schopenhauer. - Life is never beautiful; Only the picture of life is beautiful... in the purifying mirror of art.”
Schopenhauer outlined the main ideas of his philosophy in the first volume of The World as Will and Representation and partly in the book On the Will in Nature. What is the world and what can we know about it? Schopenhauer claims that everything that exists around us is, in fact, not the world itself, not things in themselves, but our ideas about them. That is, everything is concentrated in the perception of a person, not the world itself - it is a blind “will to live”, which is fragmented into an infinite variety of “objectification”, a meaningless river circling. And the conclusion: life has no meaning, has no purpose, or, in other words, it is a purpose for itself. “Always and everywhere, the true emblem of nature is the circle, because it is a pattern of return movement, and it is really the most general form in nature, which is used everywhere...” Constant dying and constant rebirth, like the change of seasons: spring - summer - autumn - winter - It’s spring again and so on endlessly. And everything is subject to will. Will is a dark, beginningless impulse - the will to exist. And this will is in man, in animals, in plants, in all living and inanimate nature.
However, the will of a person is not only the achievement of some specific result, but most importantly - the awareness of the meaninglessness and hopelessness of one’s own existence. Life is an alternation of suffering and boredom, boredom and suffering. Our life is faise nature, as Lord Byron, revered by Schopenhauer, said, our life is a misunderstanding, and even suicide does not promise any way out.
But suicides are still only a few, and the mass of people love their existence most of all, the instinct of self-preservation is the first commandment of the will to live. An uncontrollable, incessant desire for good, for pleasure, for joy - her driving will, the will to live, translates into a tireless pursuit of happiness. And happiness is essentially a chimera. This was understood not only by Schopenhauer, but was understood before him and after him. Sigmund Freud melancholy noted: “The task of making a person happy is not included in the plan of creating the world.”
“The main and main spring in man, as in animals, is egoism,” Schopenhauer believed and distinguished between two types of egoism: egoism, which wants its own good, and hypertrophied, evil egoism, which wants someone else’s grief. In the first case, he usually hides behind politeness, this “fig leaf of selfishness.” In the second, he appears as a naked crime: “Another person would be able to kill another just to grease his boots with his fat!” But at the same time, Schopenhauer adds, “I still have doubts whether this is really hyperbole.”
The second type of egoism, or, in other words, envy, black envy, flourished in Russia with the destruction of the socialist system and the construction of a capitalist one. The entire society is saturated with black envy, malice and hatred.
Schopenhauer also identifies a third spring of human actions: compassion, which wants the good of others, reaches nobility and even generosity. People would remain monsters if nature had not given them compassion to help their reason. But, alas, it is not as widespread as envy and hatred. It has long been noted that empathy for the joy of a neighbor (comrade, colleague, etc.) is usually more difficult for a person than empathy for his failures. The failure of another is the quiet joy of the envious person.
Human destiny, according to Schopenhauer, is “hardship, grief, crying, torment and death.” The world is a vale of sorrow and suffering - this is the leitmotif of his entire philosophy. Schopenhauer's aphorism is spot on: “All suffering is nothing more than an unfulfilled and suppressed desire.”
“The life of any individual person... is, in fact, always a tragedy,” Schopenhauer draws such a bleak conclusion, “but analyzed in particular, it has the character of a comedy.” This world, according to Schopenhauer, is even more terrible than Dante’s Hell, for in it every person pursuing his own happiness “must be the devil for another” (“Hell is others,” Sartre would later say). In the end, the “devil” is nothing more than the “personified will to live,” or let’s say for ourselves: the happiness of one is always based on the misfortune of another.
What can relieve suffering? According to Schopenhauer, there are two things that bring relief. First of all, contemplation of other people's suffering. Not some kind of appreciation for them, which would make it possible to help those suffering, but simply sympathy, temporarily distracting from one’s own suffering. Contemplating the unfortunate fate of other people helps us bear our own fate more easily, says Schopenhauer.
Temporary relief can come from contemplating works of art. Contemplation suspends the action of the will. Immersion in beauty comforts us for a while. Another conclusion of the Frankfurt hermit. An example from my personal life. When I arrived in Florence, it was raining, the inclement weather spoiled my mood, and despair crept into my soul. But, as I peered into Botticelli’s painting “Spring,” my soul became clearer and more joyful. The beauty of colors and lines enchanted and made me forget about the world around me.
Schopenhauer looked at the history of mankind in a unique way, believing that its periods (or chapters) do not differ in essence from each other, but “only in names and chronology.” “Everything that history tells about is essentially just a difficult, long and vague nightmare of humanity.” “The structure of human society swings like a pendulum between two evils” - despotism and anarchy. In relation to Russia, let’s say: either Pugachev’s freemen with disgrace and violence and death, or Arakcheev’s police muzzle. Extreme options: Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin, and a sea of blood.
Schopenhauer did not believe in reforms, he despised revolutions and believed that “no constitutions and legislation, no locomotives and telegraphs will ever make something truly good out of life.” Today we see how scientific and technological progress has done a lot to make people’s work easier, but has it made them happier? - that’s the question, all sorts of technical “stuff” appeared, but they could not solve human problems.
What is the use of educators, reformers, humanists? - Schopenhauer asked: “What did Voltaire, Hume, Kant actually achieve?” All their efforts are vain and fruitless efforts, for “the world is a hospital for the incurable.”
Speaking about the relationship between faith and knowledge, Schopenhauer said that they - faith and knowledge - “are two scales: the higher one is, the lower the other.” You have to choose: either or. “Whoever loves the truth hates gods, both in the singular and in the plural.”
And let's return again to the concept of happiness. Here, according to Schopenhauer, a lot depends on temperament. One continues to laugh where the other is close to despair. One, having achieved nine goals out of ten, does not rejoice at nine successes, but is sad about one failure, another finds consolation and joy in one single success. Rich and poor. Each of them has their own joys and sorrows; Schopenhauer has the following reasoning on this matter:
“Just as a country is happiest which needs less or no imports at all, so the same must be said about a person who has enough of his internal wealth and who feels little need for external goods or can even do without them altogether, for imported goods of this kind are expensive, deprive one of independence, involve danger, cause annoyance, and in the end are still only a poor substitute for the products of one’s own soil.”
Schopenhauer stands in the position of the ancient Greek writer Lucian: “Only in the wealth of the soul is our real wealth; everything else is fraught with more sorrows.”
So Brünnhilde in “The Ring of the Nibelungs” says: “I am leaving the house of desires...”
We must not wish for useless things, but must act. “Our life is a non-stop movement, and complete idleness soon becomes unbearable, giving rise to desperate boredom. This need for movement must be regulated in order to methodically - and therefore more fully - satisfy it...” Only now, alas, the world of values, both in Schopehauer’s time and in the present, has been turned upside down. And as another German thinker Lessing accurately put it: “Some are famous, others deserve it.” Schopenhauer also noted this situation with bitterness. Society repels intelligent people with its principle of equality, that is, equality of claims with inequality of abilities, and therefore of merit, “in general, all social life,” says Schopenhauer, “is a continuous enactment of comedy.”
And the final chord: “Because no matter how the plays and masks change on the world stage, the actors in them remain the same. We sit together and talk, and excite each other, and the eyes light up, and the voices become louder... but in exactly the same way for a thousand years others sat: it was all the same, and it was still the same: just the same will happen in a thousand years".
Heroes and interlocutors leave, die, disappear, but everything is “inexorable” (this is the literal translation of Schopenhauer’s expression). Matter and the world are eternal.
From the book Vernadsky: life, thought, immortality author Balandin Rudolf KonstantinovichPHILOSOPHY The list of scientific achievements of Vernadsky is long. The doctrine of the biosphere, the geological activity of living organisms and humans. The doctrine of natural waters; history of minerals and chemical elements of the earth's crust; analysis of the essence of symmetry and time; research
From the book Tsarist Russia during the World War author Palaiologist Maurice GeorgesIX. Attack of pessimism: shell crisis Wednesday, December 9, 1914 The uncertainty reigning regarding military operations in Poland, the all-too-justified premonition of the enormous losses suffered by the Russian army at Brezin, finally, the abandonment of Lodz - all this supports
From the book Football in the Line of Fire author Epstein ArnoldIn the constellation of common sense (November 1991) - Excuse me, can you sell the ticket? - I won’t sell it. I’ll give it for free! My fellow traveler said these words so proudly and solemnly that I vividly imagined: now the rattling tram will stop, girls in Chechen uniforms will fly into the cabin
From the book by A. S. Ter-Oganyan: Life, Fate and Contemporary Art author Nemirov Miroslav MaratovichPhilosophy Ohanyan comes to visit Vsevolod Lisovsky and begins to examine the books on his bookshelves. - Ilyenkov? Who is this? Philosopher? Let me read! - What do you need it for? A Marxist of the sixties with a human face, neither this nor that, let me tell you better
From the book Vladimir Putin author Medvedev Roy Alexandrovich From the book Garshin author Porudominsky Vladimir Ilyich“THE PEARL OF ARTISTIC PESSIMISM” Garshin wrote a fairy tale. He dragged his uncle into his room, closing all the doors along the way. I didn’t read for long - a quarter of an hour: the fairy tale was tiny. There was a look of bewilderment on the dear uncle’s face. An amazing fairy tale!.. What kind of heroes are they? Snail,
From the book The Great Russian Tragedy. In 2 volumes. author Khasbulatov Ruslan ImranovichSearch for common sense In “The Captain's Daughter,” Pushkin the lawyer, who graduated from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum of Humanitarian and Legal Studies, next to the prophetic words “God forbid we see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless!” formulated the author's position of common sense
From the book Escape from Darkness author Darmansky Pavel FedorovichTHE BIBLE AND THEOLOGY BEFORE THE CRITICISM OF COMMON SENSE It would be much easier to free myself from the bonds of religion if the task before me was to become an atheist. But the difficulty was that I was far from the idea of breaking with religion. Like a drowning man clutching at a straw, I clutched at
From the book Why I Stopped Believing in God author Duluman Evgraf KalenevichRELIGION BEFORE THE CRITICISM OF COMMON MIND After graduating from the seminary in 1947, I was sent to study at the Moscow Theological Academy. A deeper, without undue haste, study of the foundations of religion made it possible not only to assimilate the basic principles of religion, but also to carefully
From the book 10 geniuses of science author Fomin Alexander VladimirovichPhilosophy If you ask a modern person who Aristotle was, the most likely answer will be “a philosopher.” Indeed, in our minds, Aristotle is first and foremost a philosopher. But I would like to note once again that the word “philosopher” was understood by the ancient Greeks
From the book Hegel author Ovsyannikov Mikhail Fedotovichc) Philosophy Hegel outlined his views on philosophy and its history in “Lectures on the History of Philosophy.” Hegel defines philosophy as a thinking consideration of objects. This means that philosophy sets as its main goal the development of logical categories and the summing up
From the book KGB and the mystery of Kennedy's death author Nechiporenko Oleg MaksimovichParanoia versus common sense On February 5, 1964, “telegraph ping-pong” began between the Center in Moscow and the KGB station in Geneva. Over the next few days, code telegrams flew like balloons between the two cities. The exchange of telegrams with others has also increased
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From the book Lesson for an old policeman. Memoirs of a pessimist author Golomshtok Igor NaumovichInstead of a conclusion: about the benefits of pessimism In our difficult times, it is enough to be a pessimist to be considered a prophet. True, I was not known as a prophet, but politically my darkest forebodings and assumptions were always justified. I was neither a Leninist nor
From the book Television. Off-screen awkward people author Visilter Vilen S.A lesson in common sense In 1966, on behalf of the Moscow City Party Committee, Rolan Antonovich Bykov filmed a documentary about the Moscow militia. This work was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow. I was “thrown” into his assistant. That's when I got infected from him
Forbes magazine compiled a ranking of writers who managed to earn record amounts over the past year. Not a single Russian name was included in this list. But our oligarchs are regularly on the Forbes list.
To my shame, I only read King and Grisham. And you?
1. James Patterson. Earnings for the year - $84 million
The author of numerous thrillers and detective stories, he is mainly known for his series of books about the American psychologist Alex Cross. He also published 10 novels in the “Women’s Murder Investigation Club” series and was repeatedly nominated for various prizes and awards. “Snatch” brought Patterson a contract to write 11 books for adults and 6 for children between 2009 and 2012. 20 of Patterson's books were included in the list of best-selling books in the world in 2010.
2. Danielle Steele, $35 million
The author of numerous novels and a regular on the weekly New York Times bestseller list (staying in first place for 390 weeks in a row). The total circulation of her books exceeds 800 million copies, thanks to which Steele took 8th place in the list of best-selling authors of all time. 24 of Steele's short stories were filmed, 2 films received a Golden Globe film award.
3. Stephen King, $28 million
He became famous as a master of horror, but during his long creative life he managed to work in many genres, including mysticism, science fiction, fantasy, suspense, drama, etc. Several dozen of King's stories and novels were filmed, however, there are rumors that the writer amuses himself with the fact that sells film rights for just $1. As King himself admits, he loves to see what will come of his books on the big screen, and according to tradition, he himself appears in film adaptations in episodic roles.
4. Janet Ivanovich, $22 million
She became famous thanks to a series of adventurous detective stories about the adventures of Stephanie Plum, who, after losing her job in a lingerie store, decided to start catching criminals. Each of the 17 books in the series constantly appears in the bestseller ratings of the largest online store, Amazon.
5. Stephanie Meyer, $21 million
An American housewife and mother of three children, who one fine night had a dream about a vampire “love story”. Thus was born the Twilight series of novels, which brought Meyer and her publishers multimillion-dollar profits. All film adaptations of the Twilight saga have been box office successes. The writer's immediate plans include mystical novels about ghosts and a book about time travel.
6. Rick Riordan, $21 million
The very first series created by Riordan was awarded almost all of America's highest literary awards. These were mystical detective stories about a private detective and professor of English medieval literature, Trese Navarre. Riordan's next series was intended for children and told about the adventures of a 12-year-old boy, Percy Jackson. In 2006, a book from this series was named the best children's book in the United States; In 2010, a film adaptation of the novel “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” was released.
7. Dean Koontz, $19 million
A humble English teacher from Pennsylvania who always dreamed of a writing career. He won his first fans in 1968, and since then has been considered one of the unsurpassed masters of action-packed thrillers and horror films.
8. John Grisham, $18 million
Grisham’s main income came from so-called “legal” dramas and thrillers, many of which were filmed. Among them, for example, “The Firm” (starring Tom Cruise), “A Time to Kill” and “The Client”. Like other participants
9. Jeff Kinney, $17 million
The online game developer and animator gained fame as a writer thanks to the children's series “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” In 2011, the second film adaptation of “The Diary” was released; it topped the North American box office on its first weekend. In 2009, Kinney was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
10. Nicholas Sparks, $16 million
Most of Sparks's audience are women over 30. From his pen 16 novels were published, the main themes of which are personal tragedies, amazing destinies, fidelity and Christian love. 6 books by Sparks formed the basis for film scripts; There are rumors that in 2012, 2 more films based on its plots will be released on wide screens.
Famous writers who never existed
Text: Mikhail Vizel/GodLiteratury.RF
Photo: Rene Magritte “Son of Man”
Traditionally April 1 It is customary to give comic news about events that did not happen and invented sensations. We decided to remind you of the five most famous Russian writers who never actually existed.
1. Ivan Petrovich Belkin
The first and most significant Russian “virtual author”, who emerged in the fall of 1830 under the pen of Pushkin. It's not just a nickname; By writing “Belkin’s Tale,” Pushkin tried to get away from himself, a famous lyric poet and the darling of secular salons, who was also under the personal censorship of the tsar himself. And write strictly realistic stories on behalf of a modest provincial debutant, a retired army lieutenant - for whom he came up with a biography and even completed it by declaring poor Ivan Petrovich dead. However, he himself did not keep the secret very strictly. On the contrary, he instructed Pletnev, who was engaged in publishing stories, how to deal with booksellers: “Whisper my name to Smirdin, so that he whispers to the buyers.”
2. Kozma Prutkov
If Ivan Petrovich Belkin is the most “significant” of Russian virtual authors, then the “director of the Assay Office” is the most famous author. And, perhaps, the most prolific. Which is not surprising, given that not one, but four people wrote “on his behalf” in the 50s and 60s of the 19th century - Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy and his cousins, the three Zhemchuzhnikov brothers. “Wise thoughts” of Kozma Prutkov have become sayings: “You cannot embrace the immensity,” “If you read the inscription on an elephant’s cage: buffalo, don’t believe your eyes,” and we often forget that they were written as a mockery, in modern terms - banter . It is no coincidence that Kozma Prutkov, like another similar “piit” - Captain Lebyadkin from Dostoevsky’s “Demons”, is considered a predecessor of the poetry of the absurd and conceptualism.
3. Cherubina De Gabriac
The most romantic of virtual authors. It arose in the summer of 1909 as a result of close communication (in Koktebel, freeing from conventions) of the 22-year-old anthroposophical philologist Elizaveta Dmitrieva and the already famous poet and literary figure Maximilian Voloshin. It was he who suggested that the enthusiastic young lady, who studied medieval poetry at the Sorbonne, write poetry not in her own name (which, admittedly, is quite ordinary, like Lisa’s appearance), but in the name of a certain Russian Catholic woman with French roots. And then he actively “promoted” the poems of the mysterious Cherubina in the editorial offices of aesthetic metropolitan magazines, with the employees of which the poetess herself communicated exclusively by phone - thereby driving them crazy. The hoax ended quickly - when Nikolai Gumilev, who met Lisa in Paris a year earlier than Voloshin, considered that he had “stole” her from him and challenged his “rival” to a duel. The famous “second duel on the Chernaya River,” fortunately, ended with minimal damage - Voloshin lost his galosh in the snow, after which Sasha Cherny called him “Vax Kaloshin” in one of his poems. For Dmitrieva herself, Cherubina’s short history ended with a long creative and personal crisis - in 1911 she married a man who had nothing to do with poetry and went with him to Central Asia.
4.
Soviet times were not very conducive to full-fledged literary hoaxes. Literature was a matter of national importance, and no pranks were inappropriate here. (It is necessary, however, to put into brackets the difficult question of full-voiced Russian versions of the epics of the peoples of the USSR, created by disgraced metropolitan intellectuals.) But since the beginning of the 90s, “virtual authors” have densely filled the pages of books. For the most part, they are purely commercial and disposable. But one of them “hatched” and became a well-known brand. It’s strange to remember now, but back in 2000, I carefully kept the secret of my authorship, because I was embarrassed by this activity, writing entertaining retro detective stories, in front of my intellectual friends.
5. Nathan Dubovitsky
The author of the action-packed novel “Near Zero”, which caused a lot of noise in 2009, whose true identity has still not been officially revealed - although indirect “evidence” quite eloquently points to a high-ranking representative of the Russian political establishment. But he is in no hurry to confirm his authorship, and neither will we. It's more fun with virtual authors. And not only April 1.
10 coolest advantages of being a pessimist
The benefits of positive thinking are clear to any fool. That's it, fool! And pessimists, firstly, are smart, and secondly, we will now explain in detail what kind of happy, prudent and generally nice people we are, whiners.
Pessimist - smart
A gloomy look is guaranteed to give you a certain aura of intelligence. If the appearance also hides genuine blackest cynicism, then the glory of the first smart guy in the party is guaranteed. It is not without reason that they say that in much knowledge there is much sorrow. It also works in the opposite direction: whoever is very sad is, apparently, painfully smart (and not just a wallet, like a fool, she forgot in the fitting room).
Pessimist - invulnerable
By the way, about wallets. Pessimism is a real salvation for tired introverts who do not want to share money or show how to get to Maly Kakovinsky Lane. As soon as you remember the global economic crisis, your face becomes such that everyone who wants to sit on your neck begins to look for someone kinder, like Valuev.
Pessimist - psychotherapist
Rational pessimism (also sometimes emotional) helps to overestimate reality. Let's say two pessimists are going on vacation. Emotional freaks out because of a phobia of airplanes. And the rational one tells him about the statistics of car accidents. As a result, both of them quietly take a taxi to the airport, buckle up, and pray that it will pass. On the plane they exhale. To paraphrase an anecdote about a psychologist, to the question “So, you don’t pee at night anymore?” a pessimist would answer: “I’m peeing, but given the risk of heart disease at my age, this is such nonsense.”
Pessimist is lucky
The pessimist is always right
You already know this point without us, but we’ll mention it anyway. With pessimism, you are always Vanga and the guru of political analytics. In the end, sooner or later, currencies fall, governments fall, thieves steal, murderers kill, and he is not a match for you, because mom was right. You'll guess somewhere. But the forecast: “By eating this shawarma, you will receive a charge of energy that will allow you to work fruitfully,” reveals a positive idiot robot in a person. See the first item on our list.
The pessimist is always ready
But seriously, some scientists (British, probably, what else) calculated that pessimists live longer than optimists because they are better prepared for troubles. When packing a first aid kit for your dacha, you should definitely trust the pessimist. And it’s better to just go for a walk with your child as a pessimist, and not imagining that the sun will shine all the way, a pleasant breeze will blow, mosquitoes have flown to the south, and cigarette butts and puddles have run away after them.
A pessimist is lucky with people
People who say thank you and please at the right moments in life, repay debts and do not wipe their hands on the tablecloth, from the point of view of a pessimist, are not normal polite people, but simply heroes. Therefore, his world is full of wonderful comrades and friends. Well, if they still secretly pick their noses, well, why worry, because the pessimist KNEW SO.
The pessimist is adequate
He has the healthiest self-esteem. No flattery gets him. A pessimist does not spend time and effort creating a positive image of himself. He doesn’t tell himself any nonsense in front of the mirror. Why all this rubbish? The heat death of the universe is inevitable, the universe is constantly expanding, and so am I, so accept us and the cosmos as we are.
A pessimist is a good friend
It's good to be around suspiciously cheerful, optimistic people in bright times. But in the dark, it’s somehow awkward to disturb their well-being with your problems. And here you need a pessimist. He never doubted that things would be bad for you. Things are terrible for him too. So he will definitely listen to you and understand. And he’ll throw everyone in a Panama hat, and in the end, maybe you’ll forget about your trouble.
Pessimist - humorist
There is no need to memorize stories and anecdotes; a pessimist is witty simply due to contrast. Let's say the interlocutors began to discuss childhood, trips to parks, rides on roller coasters and carousels, wonderful years. And you keep up the conversation and say: by the way, I have a friend who was stuck on a train in a loop. And everyone is giggling nervously from stress. In general, the only drawback of pessimism is accusations of despondency and tediousness. But if you are a pessimist, then you expect them in advance, so you can safely say: I’m so happy! Be grateful that you haven't seen me in a bad mood yet
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People have always wanted to look into the future, and many have tried to make predictions. However, not every one of them was destined to come true. Below are the most pessimistic predictions made by various people over the past 200 years. None of them came true.
About events
“Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” Charles Dewell, US Patent Office Representative, 1899
“I don’t see any justifiable reason why the views expressed in my book could offend anyone’s religious feelings.” Charles Darwin, Preface to On the Origin of Species, 1869
“If one thing will remain constant, it will be the role of women in society.” David Reisman, American social scientist, conservative, 1967
"Democracy will die in 1950." John Langdon-Davies, correspondent for the English newspaper "News Chronicle", 1936
“In all likelihood, global inflation is over.” International Monetary Fund Manual, 1959
“Overcoming AIDS will be as easy as shelling pears. It's not contagious! Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California at Berkeley (USA), 1988
“Sane and responsible women do not need the right to vote.” Hoover Cleveland, US President, 1905
“It will take humanity more than 50 years to conquer the air.” Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, 1903
“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime has weapons of mass destruction. Further operations will make it possible to identify these weapons and neutralize them in the same way as the people who developed and protected them.” Tommy Franks, US Army General, 2003
About the light bulb
“...not a bad invention for our transatlantic friends...but it absolutely does not deserve the attention of practical people with a scientific mindset.” British Parliamentary Committee, 1878
“Anyone who is at all familiar with this invention will say that it is an obvious failure.” Henry Morton, Chairman of the Stevens Institute of Technology, USA, 1880
About cars
“The horse will remain the most reliable means of transportation. The car is just another fashion trend that will soon pass.” The president of the Michigan Savings Bank tried to convince Henry Ford not to invest in Ford Motor Co., 1903.
“The automotive industry has reached the pinnacle of its development. Nothing new can be invented.” Editorial board of Scientific American, 1909
“A horseless carriage is a sign of luxury and wealth, and even if its price falls in the future, it will never become as popular as a bicycle.” Literary Digest Magazine, 1899
About airplanes
“Flying with machines that are heavier than air is impossible.” Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, Chairman of the British Royal Society, 1895
“Airplanes are quite interesting toys, but they are of no interest to the military.” Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France, member of the French Academy, 1904
About computers
“In the future, the weight of computers could be reduced to just 1.5 tons. If this succeeds, it will consist of only 1,000 vacuum tubes.” Scientific magazine Popular Mechanics, 1949
"I think there is room in the global market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, head of IBM, 1943
“There is no reason why anyone would want to have a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, founder, president and chairman of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
“Well, why is all this needed?” Comment on the microchip by an engineer in IBM's Advanced Computer Systems Division, 1968.
About radio
"Radio has no future." Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, Chairman of the British Royal Society, 1897
“It is impossible to imagine any commercial application for this wireless barrel organ. Who would pay for a message sent to nowhere, without a specific addressee? One of David Sarnoff's comrades responding to his call for investment in radio development, 1921.
About space travel
“There is virtually no chance that satellites will be able to improve the transmission of television and radio signals in the United States.” T. Craven, FCC Representative, 1961
“Space travel is nonsense.” Harold Spencer Jones, British astronomer, 1957
"The rocket will never be able to fly beyond the Earth's atmosphere." New York Times, 1936
About television and cinema
“Television won’t last long because people will soon get tired of looking into polished wooden boxes.” Darryl Zanuck, film producer at 20th Century Fox, 1946
“Who wants to listen to actors talk anyway?” H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
About nuclear energy
“Research in the field of nuclear technology is one of the biggest mistakes made by humanity. It will not be possible to create a nuclear bomb. I’m telling you this as an expert.” American Admiral William Leahy, 1944
“Nuclear energy is no more dangerous than the explosives we have today.” Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939
“The likelihood that a person will be able to seize the power of the atom is negligible.” Robert Millican, American physicist, Nobel Prize winner, 1923
Based on materials from the site 2spare.com prepared by Alexander Timoshik
