I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years.
Interpretation
The quote reflects Wilbur Wright's humble acknowledgment of his past skepticism about human flight.
In this quote, Wilbur Wright reminisces about a time when he doubted the feasibility of flight, indicating that innovation and progress often happen faster than we can imagine. It serves as a reminder that great advancements can occur in unexpected ways and that our limitations may be surpassed through determination and ingenuity.
In practice
During a speech on technological advancements, one might quote this to emphasize the unpredictability of progress.
I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine. I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then, if possible, add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain final success.
Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what they receive.
The fact that the great scientist believed in flying machines was the one thing that encouraged us to begin our studies.
The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.
No matter how beautiful, no matter how cool your interface, it would be better if there were less of it.
The whole notion of passwords is based on an oxymoron. The idea is to have a random string that is easy to remember. Unfortunately, if it's easy to remember, it's something nonrandom like 'Susan.' And if it's random, like 'r7U2*Qnp,' then it's not easy to remember.
The people who designed the tools that make the Net run had their own ideas for the future.
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
What I do instead is I will cheerfully spend literally hours on identifier names: variable names, method names, and so forth, to make my code readable. If you read some expression using these identifiers and it reads like an English sentence, your program is much more likely to be correct, and much easier to maintain.
I don't condone anyone causing damage in my name, or doing anything malicious in support of my plight. There are more productive ways to help me. As a hacker myself, I never intentionally damaged anything.
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