In the words of Frank Sinatra, the best revenge is massive success. Just ask Peter Higgs, the theoretical physicist best known for his prediction of the existence of the Higgs boson.  

In 1964, Peter Higgs submitted a paper to a European physics journal outlining his proposed mechanism for how particles acquire mass. When the paper was reviewed by the editor, he rejected it, calling it "silly" and "trivial." Higgs' idea was considered too speculative at the time and was not taken seriously by many in the physics community. Nevertheless, Higgs persevered.

Paradoxically, the editor who rejected Higgs belonged to CERN, the institute responsible for confirming the existence of the so-called God particle in 2012 and Peter Higgs went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013, shared with François Englert.