Favorite Quotes

A few favorite quotes:

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519

"There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings." Wilbur Wright, 1905

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler" Albert Einstein

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." Henry Ford

"Most of my adult life, perhaps all the worthwhile part of it, has been spent messing about with airplanes." Nevil Shute, Slide Rule, 1954

"Aeroplanes are not designed by science but by art, in spite of some pretence and humbug to the contrary." Royal Aeronautical Society, 1922

"You should never fail to start a project because you don't know how to do some aspect of the work. Start anyway. That forces you to learn." Cory Bird, designer and builder of Oshkosh Grand Champion Symmetry

"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." Fredrich von Schiller

"It is my belief that flight is possible, and while I am taking up the investigation for pleasure rather than profit, I think there is a slight possibility of achieving fame and fortune from it." Wilbur Wright, 1900

"An imperfect plan implemented immediately and violently will always succeed better than waiting for a perfect plan!" General George S. Patton

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

"Twenty years from now you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did." Mark Twain

"Science, freedom, beauty, adventure...what more could you ask of life? Aviation offers it all" Charles A. Lindbergh

"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." Mary Shafer NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, SR-71 Flying Qualities Lead Engineer

"Simplicate and Add Lightness." design philosophy of Ed Heinemann, Douglas Aircraft

"We have no effective screening methods to make sure pilots are sane." Dr. Herbert Haynes, Federal Aviation Authority

"For a plane to fly well, it must be beautiful." Marcel Dassault

“You must be careful when you near the end of the project. As you can see, he got in a hurry and it turned out a little rough.” Don Staats quoting Ray Brandly about a Waco restoration

"Are you ever afraid when you fly?"
"That's a good question. Yeah. I'm always a little afraid when I fly. That's what makes me so damn good. I've seen pilots who weren't afraid of anything, who would forget about checking their instruments, who flew by instinct as though they were immortal. I've pissed on the graves of those poor bastards too. The pilot who isn't a little bit afraid always screws up and when you screw up bad in a jet, you get a corporal playing taps at the expense of the government." Lieutenant Colonel Bull Meecham, USMC, in Pat Conroy's book, 'The Great Santini.'

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" Benjamin Franklin

"The man who has no imagination has no wings." Muhammad Ali

“The important thing in aeroplanes is that they shall be speedy.” Baron Manfred von Richthofen

"What kind of man would live where there is no daring? I don't believe in taking foolish chances but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all." Charles A. Lindbergh

“Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees, and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.” Anonymous

"The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age." Winston Churchill

"To me, logging the hours of such a pleasant, rewarding process would have been rather like keeping a stopwatch running while reading a splendid book, so that you knew how many hours it took to read it." Steve Wilkinson, discussing build hours on his Falco project

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!" Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States, 1945

"One of my very first impressions about America is that I'm luckier than many of her citizens because I've now seen so much of her beauty that is not seen even by those who live there. Traveling by small airplane removes the visual limitations imposed by roads and highways and opens up vistas that are not to be believed." George Richards, Auckland, New Zealand in Experimenter Magazine, April 2013

"Je vole car cela libere mon esprit de la tyrannie des choses insignifiantes" translated: "I fly because it frees my mind from the tyranny of petty things." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"I wrote an article for Sport Aerobatics around 20 years ago in which I compared flying, and flying competition and airshow aerobatics in particular, to dancing with the most beautiful and seductive woman imaginable, but she is also a vampire. You can enjoy yourself, but you have to watch her like a hawk every second, because the moment you let down your guard, she will bite you in the neck!" Damon Wack, VAF, October 2013

"Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей." translated: "Do not have a hundred rubles, have a hundred friends." Old Russian proverb

"Allowing others more and more power to decide what's right will end badly. It always does. The many small incremental concessions seem innocent now as they did to many millions that have suffered and died under tyranny." Larry C. New, December 2013

"Never be afraid to try something new. Just remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic" Unknown

"The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.
And why shouldn't it be... its the same the angels breathe." Mark Twain