Air Quote by Simon Newcomb

Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?

— Joseph LeConte

Inventive man has invented nothing -- nothing from scratch. If he has produced a machine that in motion overcomes the law of gravity, he…

— Dorothy Thompson

It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill.

— Wilbur Wright

“Every machine has had the same history – a long record of sleepless nights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial…

— Pyotr Kropotkin

However a skillful man is at making his machine but the forces of nature are not to be taken slightly.

— Anonymous

To the man who can perfectly practice inaction, all things are possible.

— Ernest Holmes

The tendency of philosophers who know nothing of machinery is to talk of man as a mere mechanism, intending by this to imply that…

— Arthur Young

Construction of an aerial vehicle which can carry even a single man . . . requires the discovery of some new metal or force.…

— Simon Newcomb

“It takes much more than logic and clear-cut demonstrations to overcome the inertia and dogma of established thought.”

— Irwin Stone

Yet is it possible in terms of the motion of atoms to explain how men can invent an electric motor, or design and build…

— Arthur Compton

“Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent…

— Lawrence Hargrave

“Every significant invention must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared…

— Anonymous