Consider this:

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, one of the great composers, handled his violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions.  His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.  He wrote his greatest music after he was deaf.

The parents of the famous opera singer ENRICO CARUSO wanted him to be an engineer.  His teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing.

CHARLES DARWIN, father of the Theory of Evolution, writes in his autobiography: “I was considered by all my masters and by my father, as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.”

THOMAS EDISON, the father of over 1,300 inventions, was judged by his teachers as too stupid to learn anything.  His mother took him out of primary school and taught him at home.

ALBERT EINSTEIN, one of the geniuses of modern atomic physics, did not speak until he was four years old, and did not read until he was seven. His teacher described him as, “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.”

LOUIS PASTEUR, the biologist who revolutionized ideas about medicine, was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies… ranking 15th out of 22 in chemistry.

HENRY FORD failed and went bankrupt five times before he finally succeeded.

The famous home run king in baseball, BABE RUTH, also holds the record for strikes-outs.

Hollywood dancing star FRED ASTAIRE kept a memo over his fireplace at home.  It was dated 1933 and came from the testing director of MGM movie studio.  It said of him: “Can’t act.  Slightly bald.  Can dance a little.”

In 1962, four nervous young musicians with a British accent played for some executives of the Decca Record Company.  They were not impressed.  While turning down this rock group called BEATLES, one executive said, “We don’t like their sound.  Groups of guitars are on the way out.”  That statement was way off.

When ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL invented the telephone in 1876, the American president of the day, Rutherford Hayes, said, “That’s an amazing invention, but who could ever want to use one of them?”

When PABLO CASALS reached 95, a young reporter threw him the following question: “Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived.  Why do you still practice six hours a day?”
Mr. Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT was paralyzed by polio at the age of 39, and yet he went on to become the only American president to serve four terms.

Jack Canfield and Mark V Hansen