Great Aviation Quotes - Page 7

• Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

  Epicurus

  Philosophical, Hard Times, Skills

  49 Copy quote

• In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.

  Robert Benchley

  Travel, Children, Airplane

  Pluck and Luck (1925)

  42 Copy quote

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• Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Airplane, Adventure, Space

  Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1978). “Autobiography of values”, Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

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• 

  As soon as we left the ground, I knew I had to fly.

  Amelia Earhart

  Aviation, Left

  85 Copy quote

• Flying was a very tangible freedom. In those days, it was beauty, adventure, discovery - the epitome of breaking into new worlds.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Adventure, Discovery, Flying

  ANNE MORROW lINDBERGH (1973). “HOUR OF GOLD HOUR OF LEAD”

  23 Copy quote

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• Great pilots are made not born. . . . A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end result is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience.

  Johnnie Johnson

  Men, Hands, Practice

  53 Copy quote

• The way I see it, you can either work for a living or you can fly airplanes. Me, I'd rather fly.

  Len Morgan

  Airplane, Flying, Way

  16 Copy quote

• Unlike the boundaries of the sea by the shorelines, the "ocean of air" laps at the border of every state, city, town and home throughout the world.

  L. Welch Pogue

  Ocean, Home, Airplane

  45 Copy quote

• Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life?

  Charles Lindbergh

  Beauty, Adventure, Flying

  Charles A. Lindbergh, Reeve Lindbergh (2003). “The Spirit of St. Louis”, p.261, Simon and Schuster

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• Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle.

  Igor Sikorsky

  Airplane, Miracle, Flying

  88 Copy quote

• Every flyer who ventures across oceans to distant lands is a potential explorer; in his or her breast burns the same fire that urged adventurers of old to set forth in their sailing-ships for foreign lands.

  Jean Batten

  Travel, Ocean, Airplane

  111 Copy quote

• Thousands of volumes have been written about aviation, but we do not automatically have thousands of true and special friends in their authors. That rare writer who comes alive on a page does it by giving of himself, by writing of meanings, and not just of fact or of things that have happened to him. The writers of flight who have done this are usually found together in a special section on private bookshelves.

  Richard Bach

  Writing, Airplane, Giving

  Richard Bach (2012). “A Gift of Wings”, p.94, Dell

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• It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Brother, Prayer, Believe

  31 Copy quote

• Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Jobs, Play, Aviation

  Ernest K. Gann (1986). “Fate is the Hunter: A Pilot's Memoir”, p.70, Simon and Schuster

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• To put your life in danger from time to time... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

  Nevil Shute

  Airplane, Climbing, Flying

  Nevil Shute (1954). “Slide rule: the autobiography of an engineer”

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• We want the air to unite the peoples, and not to divide them.

  Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Earl of Swinton

  Airplane, Flying, Want

  6 Copy quote

• Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Flying, Aviation, Relaxed

  34 Copy quote

• And he supposed it might not be the best of days. But then, he was flying the mails and was not expected to squat on the ground like a frightened canary every time there was a cloud in the sky. If a pilot showed an obvious preference for flying only in the best conditions he soon found himself looking for work. This was the way of his life and he had always ascended when others had found excuse to keep their feet on the ground.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Clouds, Sky, Feet

  21 Copy quote

• Harmony comes gradually to a pilot and his plane. The wing does not want so much to fly true as to tug at the hands that guide it; the ship would rather hunt the wind than lay her nose to the horizon far ahead. She has a derelict quality in her character; she toys with freedom and hints at liberation, but yields her own desires gently.

  Beryl Markham

  Character, Yield, Hands

  McDougal, Beryl Markham (1997). “West with the Night”, McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin

  27 Copy quote

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• Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother
  to learn more than the simplest facts of flight how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this
  gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else,
  Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

  Richard Bach

  Inspirational, Bird, Flying

  RICHARD BACH (1970). “JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL”

  154 Copy quote

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• The airman must possess absolutely untroubled nerves.

  Francis Collins

  Nerves, Aviation, Airmen

  6 Copy quote

• The quality of the box matters little. Success depends upon the man who sits in it.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Men, Quality, Littles

  Manfred von Richthofen (2009). “The Red Baron”, p.160, BoD – Books on Demand

  125 Copy quote

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• Electronics were rascals, and they lay awake nights trying to find some way to screw you during the day. You could not reason with them. They had a brain and intestines, but no heart.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Heart, Night, Brain

  32 Copy quote

• Airshow flying is tough, it's even tougher if you do something stupid. Don't do nuthin dumb!

  Ralph Royce

  Stupid, Flying, Dumb

  6 Copy quote

• There are airmen and there are pilots: the first being part bird whose view from aloft is normal and comfortable, a creature whose brain and muscles frequently originate movements which suggest flight; and then there are pilots who regardless of their airborne time remain earth-loving bipeds forever. When these latter unfortunates, because of one urge or another, actually make an ascension, they neither anticipate nor relish the event and they drive their machines with the same graceless labor they inflict upon the family vehicle.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Views, Bird, Forever

  45 Copy quote