Great Aviation Quotes: Quotations on Airplanes, Flying and Being A Pilot

‎‎‎‎"These popular, unmanned aircraft will eventually fall into the hands of hostile nations and terrorists."

— John Villasenor, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, first sentence of article 'Here Come the Drones,' Scientific American magazine January 2012. Written/published before Iran obtained the RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

"American Airlines Begins Legal Process in United States to Improve Competitiveness."

— Title of American Airlines press release that uses 483 words, none of them 'bankruptcy' or 'bankrupt.' 29 November 2011.

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"Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven :— That is by letters written with their quills."

— Leonardo da Vinci, English translation by Edward McCurdy, Leonardo Da Vunci's Note-books.

"Thousands of volumes have been written about aviation, but we do not automatically have thousands of true and special friends in their authors. That rare writer who comes alive on a page does it by giving of himself, by writing of meanings, and not just of fact or of things that have happened to him. The writers of flight who have done this are usually found together in a special section on private bookshelves."

— Richard Bach, 'The Pleasure of Their Company,' in Flying magazine, April 1968.

"Or like a poet woo the Moon,
Riding an armchair for my steed,
And with a flashing pen harpoon
Terrific metaphors of speed."

— Roy Campbell, The Festivals of Flight, 1930.

"It isn't often that a writer of superlative skills knows enough about flying to write well about it."

— Samuel Hynes, 'A Teller of Tales Tells His Own,' in the New York Times, 7 September 1997.

The object here is to capture man's first-hand experiences with flight in all its forms, to collect flying quotes, aviation and space quotations and sayings. It is the ultimate online quotable flyer. It is not 'under construction,' but it very much is a 'work in progress.' If you can supply dates or sources for existing quotes, or correct typos, or suggest further sources of information, or of course if you know of some aerospace, airline, or pilot quotes, please please send them in to me. I'm always happy to add new sections, and to correct mistakes. This collection is growing into something no one person could have created, a real product of the worldwide Internet community. To contact me directly email me.

"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."

— This must be the most famous aviation quote that is not a verifiable quote. It is attributed everywhere (including some Smithsonian publications and the Washington Post newspaper) to Leonardo da Vinci, but I've never found definitive source information. Neither did some nice folks I talked with at National Geographic Magazine, who contacted one of the world's leading Leonardo authorities in Italy as part of a long research process and were told that Leonardo da Vinci did not write it. If you have uncovered any source information, please email me or post on the Facebook page.