Pilots And Flying Quotes

• In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.

  Neil Armstrong

  Science, Flying, Survival

  68 Copy quote

• You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.

  Amelia Earhart

  Airplane, Sky, Tree

  "How Aerial Photography Changes A Photographer’s Perspective" by Heather Hummel, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 2, 2014.

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• Flying is hours and hours of boredom sprinkled with a few seconds of sheer terror.

  Pappy Boyington

  Funny, Humorous, Airplane

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• Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.

  Steven Wright

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Funny, Motivational, Humorous

  435 Copy quote

• Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see .

  Charles Lindbergh

  Beautiful, Eye, Men

  Charles A. Lindbergh, Reeve Lindbergh (2003). “The Spirit of St. Louis”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

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• I don't have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing.

  Billy Bob Thornton

  Airplane, Flying, Fear Of Flying

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• When you think about flying, it's nuts really. Here you are at about 40,000 feet, screaming along at 700 miles an hour and you're sitting there drinking Diet Pepsi and eating peanuts. It just doesn't make any sense.

  David Letterman

  Drinking, Thinking, Nuts

  19 Copy quote

• Flying without feathers is not easy: my wings have no feathers.

  Plautus

  Wings, Flying, Aviation

  "Plautus: The little Carthaginian. Pseudolus. The ro".

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• The engine is the heart of an aeroplane, but the pilot is its soul.

  Walter Alexander Raleigh

  Heart, Flying, Soul

  Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh, Henry Albert Jones (1922). “The War in the Air: Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force ...”, The Clarendon Press

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• Once you have learned to fly your plane, it is far less fatiguing to fly than it is to drive a car. You don't have to watch every second for cats, dogs, children, lights, road signs, ladies with baby carriages and citizens who drive out in the middle of the block against the lights. . . . Nobody who has not been up in the sky on a glorious morning can possibly imagine the way a pilot feels in free heaven.

  William T. Piper

  Dog, Baby, Nature

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• I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport, although that end is what we have all ostensibly been striving to attain.

  Amy Johnson

  Mean, Thinking, Flying

  Amy Johnson (1939). “Sky Roads of the World”

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• I don't think I possess any skill that anyone else doesn't have. I've just had perhaps more of an opportunity, more of an exposure, and been fortunate to survive a lot of situations that many other weren't so lucky to make it. It's not how close can you get to the ground, but how precise can you fly the airplane. If you feel so careless with you life that you want to be the world's lowest flying aviator you might do it for a while. But there are a great many former friends of mine who are no longer with us simply because they cut their margins to close.

  Bob Hoover

  Inspirational, Life, Airplane

  83 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

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• 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

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• If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I?

  Yip Harburg

  Rainbow, Flying, Littles

  Song: Over the Rainbow

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• Whenever we safely land in a plane, we promise God a little something.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Travel, Land, Flying

  "The Complete Neurotic's Notebook". Book by Mignon McLaughlin, 1981.

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• Nobody who has not been up in the sky on a glorious morning can possibly imagine the way a pilot feels in free heaven.

  William T. Piper

  Morning, Sky, Heaven

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• Leader, bandits at 2 o'clock! Roger; it's only 1:30 now-what'll I do 'til then?

  Bill Watterson

  Funny, Leader, Roger

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• I think there is something exhilarating in flying amongst clouds, and always get a feeling of wanting to pit my aeroplane against them, charge at them, climb over them to show them you have them beat, circle round them, and generally play with them; but clouds can on occasion hold their own against the aviator, and many a pilot has found himself emerging from a cloud not on a level keel.

  Charles Rumney Samson

  Thinking, Clouds, Play

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• The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

  Harry Reasoner

  Airplane, Flying, Balance

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• If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Funny, Witty, Revenge

  Laurence J. Peter (1979). “Peter's people”, W. Morrow

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• Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Peace

  Orthodoxy (1908) ch. 7

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• I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

  Jean Kerr

  Inspirational, Travel, Airplane

  JEAN KERR (1960). “THE SNAKE HAS ALL THE LINES”

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• Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.

  Thomas Szasz

  Revenge, Mistake, Inspiration

  The Second Sin (1973) "Social Relations"

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