Eddie Rickenbacker Quotes

Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.

I can give you a six-word formula for success: "Think things through - then follow through."

Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.

Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life become more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.

The biggest lesson I've learned . . . was that if you have all the fresh water you want to drink and all the food you want to eat, you ought never to complain about anything.

Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do.

I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder.

I would rather have a million friends than a million dollars.

I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know, and I'll fight like a wildcat until they nail the lid of my pine box down on me.

The better I shoot, the less I have to maneuver.

I pay those guys to fly, so let them fly. I'll be damned if I'll pay them to just sit there.

The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid. It is the easiest thing in the world to die. The hardest is to live.

Let the moment come when nothing is left but life, and you will find that you do not hesitate over the fate of material possessions.

The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business is to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down.

I am not such an egotist as to believe that God has spared me because I am I. I believe there is work for me to do and that I am spared to do it, just as you are.

Flying saucers are real. Too many good men have seen them, that don't have hallucinations.

Within the next few decades, autos will have folding wings that can be spread when on a straight stretch of road so that the machine can take to the air.

There is a peculiar gratification in receiving congratulations from one's squadron for a victory in the air. It is worth more to a pilot than the applause of the whole outside world.

In this business, you find the enemy, then go after and destroy him. Everything else is rubbish!

The smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Selfdistrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

The key to success, is to think things through and then follow through.

If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live. The guarantee of continuity is quality.

Think positively and masterfully with confidence and faith and life becomes more secure more fraught with action richer in achievement and experience.

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.