In 1962, four young musicians auditioned for Decca Records. The executives dismissed them saying, "We don't like their sound. Groups with guitars are on their way out."
The Beatles left without a contract.

In 1954, Elvis Presley was fired by the manager of the Grand Ole' Opry, who said, "You ain't going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck."

Alexander Graham Bell, after inventing the telephone, was told by President Rutherford B. Hayes, "That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to us one of them?"

After it took Thomas Edison 2000 tries to invent the light bulb, a young reporter asked him how it felt to fail so many times. "I've never failed once," Edison said. "It just happened to be a 2000 step process."

[Chicken Soup for the Soul]