25 Quotes by Famous Pilots that will Awe and Inspire You

1) The most effective way to do it, is to do it. ~ Amelia Earhart

2) The air is the only place free from prejudice. ~ Bessie Coleman

3) Of course, with the increasing number of aeroplanes one gains increased opportunities for shooting down one’s enemies, but at the same time, the possibility of being shot down one’s self increases. ~ Manfred von Richthofen a.k.a Red Baron

5) In combat flying, fancy precision aerobatic work is really not of much use. Instead, it is the rough maneuver which succeeds. ~ Erich Hartmann

6) Each generation of pilots hopes that they will leave their profession better off than they found it. ~ Chesley Sullenberger

7) The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

8) Bravery comes along as a gradual accumulation of discipline ~ Buzz Aldrin

9) Fighter pilot is an attitude. It is cockiness. It is aggressiveness. It is self-confidence. It is a streak of rebelliousness, and it is competitiveness. But there’s something else – there’s a spark. There’s a desire to be good. To do well; in the eyes of your peers, and in your own mind. ~ Robin Olds

10) The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways to insure that freedom — you can be rich or you can you reduce your needs to zero. ~ John Boyd

11) Never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area. ~ Adolph Malan

12) You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done. ~ Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager

13) The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through. ~ Orville Wright

14) The fact that the great scientist believed in flying machines was the one thing that encouraged us to begin our studies. ~ Wilbur Wright

15) Everything I had ever learned about air fighting taught me that the man who is aggressive, who pushes a fight, is the pilot who is successful in combat and who has the best opportunity for surviving battle and coming home. ~ Robert S. Johnson

16) The good thing about flying solo is it’s never boring. ~ Steve Fossett

17) I’m proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it, and have it work as perfectly as it did… I sleep clearly every night. ~ Paul Tibbets

18) I could have gone on flying through space forever. ~ Yuri Gagarin

19) Death is the handmaiden of the pilot. Sometimes it comes by accident, sometimes by an act of God. ~ Albert Scott Crossfield

20) If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. ~ Bob Hoover

22) The first lesson is that you can’t lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can’t win a war if you haven’t. ~ Jimmy Doolittle

23) In the case of pilots, it is a little touch of madness that drive us to go beyond all known bounds. Any search into the unknown is an incomparable exploitation of oneself. ~ Jacqueline Auriol

24) There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety. ~ John Glenn

25) I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve. ~ Charles Lindbergh