• A six-year-old boy came home with a note from his teacher in which it was suggested that he be taken out of school, as he was “too stupid to learn.” That boy was Thomas A. Edison.
• Alfred Tennyson’s grandfather gave him 10 shillings for writing a eulogy for his grandmother. Handing it to the lad, the old man said: “There, that is the first money you ever earned by your poetry, and take my word for it, it will be the last.”
• Benjamin Franklin’s mother-in-law hesitated at letting her daughter marry a printer. There were already two printing offices in the United States, and she feared that the country might not be able to support a third.