Wilbur Wright

It is not the man who has done the most, but the man who has done the best, that is to be honored.

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously at the birds soaring freely through space, at tremendous speed, without effort, in a leisurely way, and with a great deal of enjoyment.

No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris... [it is] a physical impossibility.

I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. Ever since, I have distrusted myself and have avoided all predictions.

The only way to learn to fly is to fly.

The course of the experiment was not exactly according to program, but the machine was not damaged and we learned a good deal.

It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.

We could not have chosen a worse time of year for our experiments.

If we worked on the assumption that what is currently accepted as true is all there is to believe, then there would be very little hope for advance.

The great problem is to find a suitable place for experiments.

The machine itself is nothing, the work is everything.

The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.

Success is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.

The greatest value of our experiments is that they show the absolute necessity of a thorough knowledge of the principles of flight.

We had to get a machine that would fly, and then learn to fly it.

The air, like the sea, is an untamed element.

The difficulties are not so great as they appear.

The problem of flight is one of the most difficult problems that has ever been attempted by man.

We were not in a hurry, for we knew that haste makes waste.

The machine is a success, but the man is a failure.