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

"Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight."

— Bertrand Piccard, co-founder of Solar Impulse, the first manned airplane to stay aloft on battery power through a night. After 26 hours aloft, pilot Andre Borschberg landed the solar-powered four-engine aircraft with a net positive charge in the batteries. Morning of 8 July 2010.

"We recognised that just putting more flights and more passengers into the skies over southeast England wasn’t worth the environmental costs we’re paying."

— Teresa Villiers, Great Britain’s minister of state for transport, regards the new government's decision to cancel the proposed third runway at Heathrow (and expansions at Gatwick and Stansted) due to global warming concerns. Interview in the New York Times, 1 July 2010.

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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.

"My wings are a thousand books."

— Gill Robb Wilson

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 use the oh-so-handy form.

"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.