Aviation Quotes

Pan Am can go to hell.

— Alfred Kahn

The birds can fly, An' why can't I?

— Anonymous

Dad, I left my heart up there.

— Anonymous

Speed is the cushion of sloppiness.

— William P. Driscoll

South Wales is a hub of aviation.

— Bruce Dickinson

How could they possibly be Japanese planes?

— Husband E. Kimmel

A fool and his money are soon married.

— Carolyn Wells

In a calm sea every man is a pilot.

— John Ray

I can cure your men of walking off the [flight] program. Let's put on the girls.

— Jacqueline Cochran

I've been a space and aviation enthusiast since as long as I can remember.

— Jared Isaacman

Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?

— Donald Rumsfeld

Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers.

— Plautus

Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history.

— James Dickey

The aeroplane is tragically unsuited for ocean service.

— Hugo Eckener

Never fly anything that doesn't have the paint worn off the rudder Pedals.

— Bill Harry

Ah hell. We had more fun in a week than those weenies had in a lifetime.

— Pancho Barnes

Let brisker youths their active nerves prepare Fit their light silken wings and skim the buxom air.

— Richard Owen Cambridge

If you look at the river in that fashion you will be likely to bathe in it soon," cried Rozier. "Some fire,…

— Francois Laurent d'Arlandes

We built a jet airplane to get in and out of a 5,000-ft field. No one believed it could be done.

— Joe Sutter

Any idiot can get an airplane off the ground, but an aviator earns his keep by bringing it back anytime, anywhere, under…

— Walter Cunningham

Aviation will give new nourishment to the religious sprit of mankind. It will add airspace to those other great heighteners of the…

— Christian Morgenstern

“I have read stories of budget airlines stranding families and them having to pay $9,000 to get home!”

— Steven Magee

It is not enough to just ride this earth. You have to aim higher, try to take off, even fly. It is…

— Jose Yacopi

To squander a fortune in public money, billions and billions, stubbornly carrying on with a Concorde we can only sell to ourselves.

— Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber

“And this was the greatest gift that aviation could ever give me; not the sense of freedom but the sense of permanence,…

— Melanie Benjamin

It was my view that no kill was worth the life of a wingman. . . . Pilots in my unit who…

— Erich Hartmann

My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above…

— John Milton

The airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what…

— Richard Bach

In my experience flying search-and-rescue missions, the greatest single variable contributing to successful rescues was the preparedness and expertise of the person(s)…

— Tom Gross

Because operators are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield, and undertake operations entirely through computer screens and remote audio feed,…

— Philip Alston

How does 2002 bombing accident in Afghanistan happen? In this awful case it took so many lives, and I want to assure…

— Ray Henault

I had no system of shooting as such. It is definitely more in the feeling side of things that these skills develop.…

— Gunther Rall

These phantoms speak with human voices — friendly, vapor- like shapes, without substance, able to vanish or appear at will, to pass…

— Charles Lindbergh

Too often little attention is paid to individual talent. instead, education goes on dividing people according to their sex, and putting them…

— Amelia Earhart

Suppose that throughout your childhood you were good with numbers. Other kids used to copy your homework. You figured store discounts faster…

— James Hillman

Flying has changed how we imagine our planet, which we have seen whole from space, so that even the farthest nations are…

— Diane Ackerman

We have to make some things for ourselves because the conveyer belt from China is doomed (this process is known as import…

— James Howard Kunstler

So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Like night over the sea, they are very far…

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It may be that the invention of the aeroplane flying-machine will be deemed to have been of less material value to the…

— Waldemar Kaempffert

There is something more important than any ultimate weapon. That is the ultimate position-the position of total control over Earth that lies…

— Lyndon B. Johnson