I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
One could sit still and look at life from the air; that was it. And I was conscious again of the fundamental magic of flying, a miracle that has nothing to do with any of its practical purposes – speed, accessibility, and convenience – and will not change as they change. Looking down from the air that morning, I felt that stillness rested like a light over the earth. What motion there was took on a slow grace, like slow-motion pictures which catch the moment of outstretched beauty that one cannot see in life itself, so swiftly does it move.
And if flying, like a glass-bottomed bucket, can give you that vision, that seeing eye, which peers down to the still world below the choppy waves – it will always remain magic.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
To fall is not painful for those who fly low.
—Chinese Proverb
A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery from the trip to the faraway places you’ve been, a decompression chamber between Here and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, to reassess or reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice.
—Shana Alexander (1925–2005) American Journalist, Editor, Author
The aeroplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
—Chinese Proverb
Don’t try to fly before you have wings.
—French Proverb
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
—Common Proverb
You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.
—Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American Aviator
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Birds of a color fly to the same place.
—Welsh Proverb
Never Forget!- The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I’m just soul on a sunbeam.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
Falling hurts least those who fly low.
—Chinese Proverb
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
—James Thurber
Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life? Aviation combined all the elements I loved. There was science in each curve of an airfoil, in each angle between strut and wire, in the gap of a spark plug or the color of the exhaust flame. There was freedom in the unlimited horizon, on the open fields where one landed. A pilot was surrounded by beauty of earth and sky. He brushed treetops with the birds, leapt valleys and rivers, explored the cloud canyons he had gazed at as a child. Adventure lay in each puff of wind.
I began to feel that I lived on a higher plane than the skeptics of the ground; one that was richer because of its very association with the element of danger they dreaded, because it was freer of the earth to which they were bound. In flying, I tasted a wine of the gods of which they could know nothing. Who valued life more highly, the aviators who spent it on the art they loved, or these misers who doled it out like pennies through their antlike days? I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life time.
—Charles Lindbergh (1902–74) American Aviator, Inventor, Conservationist
God made low branches for birds that cannot fly so well.
—Turkish Proverb
There is no flying without wings.
—French Proverb
Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.
—Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American Aviator
I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder.
—Bill Maher (b.1956) American Comedian, TV Personality, Social Critic, Author, Actor
The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul.
—Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) English Courtier, Navigator, Poet
The roast duck can fly no more.
—Chinese Proverb
No need to teach an eagle to fly.
—Greek Proverb
The desire to reach for the sky runs deep in our human psyche.
—Cesar Pelli (1926–2019) Argentinean-born American Architect
Flying birds have no master.
—French Proverb
Why fly? Simple. I’m not happy unless there’s some room between me and the ground.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English Novelist, Scriptwriter
When a heart is on fire, sparks always fly out of the mouth.
—Common Proverb
Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that; so it goes on flying anyway.
—Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) American Entrepreneur, Businessperson
Before you can learn to fly, you must first learn to walk. You cannot fly into flying.
—Unknown