TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Aeronautics

Aeronautics Quotes (15 quotes)

[In 1909,] Paris was the center of the aviation world. Aeronautics was neither an industry nor even a science; both were yet to come. It was an “art” and I might say a “passion”. Indeed, at that time it was a miracle. It meant the realization of legends and dreams that had existed for thousands of years and had been pronounced again and again as impossible by scientific authorities. Therefore, even the brief and unsteady flights of that period were deeply impressive. Many times I observed expressions of joy and tears in the eyes of witnesses who for the first time watched a flying machine carrying a man in the air.
In address (16 Nov 1964) presented to the Wings Club, New York City, Recollections and Thoughts of a Pioneer (1964), 5.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Art (680)  |  Aviation (8)  |  Both (496)  |  Brief (37)  |  Carry (130)  |  Center (35)  |  Dream (222)  |  Exist (458)  |  Expression (181)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Flight (101)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Impressive (27)  |  Indeed (323)  |  Industry (159)  |  Joy (117)  |  Legend (18)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Miracle (85)  |  Observe (179)  |  Observed (149)  |  Paris (11)  |  Passion (121)  |  Period (200)  |  Realization (44)  |  Say (989)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Tear (48)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Watch (118)  |  Witness (57)  |  World (1850)  |  Year (963)

~~[Misquoted]~~ Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.
A viral quote with no known authentic source in these words. At best, it is consistent with quotes expressing doubt that are documented. For example, the quote which begins “I am afraid I am not in the flight for ‘aerial navigation’…” on the Lord Kelvin Quotes page of this website.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Heavy (24)  |  Impossible (263)  |  Machine (271)

Aeroplanes are not designed by science, but by art in spite of some pretence and humbug to the contrary. I do not mean to suggest that engineering can do without science, on the contrary, it stands on scientific foundations, but there is a big gap between scientific research and the engineering product which has to be bridged by the art of the engineer.
In John D. North, 'The Case for Metal Construction', The Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, (Jan 1923), 27, 11.
Science quotes on:  |  Airplane (43)  |  Art (680)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Design (203)  |  Do (1905)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Foundation (177)  |  Gap (36)  |  Humbug (6)  |  Mean (810)  |  Pretence (7)  |  Product (166)  |  Research (753)  |  Science And Art (195)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spite (55)  |  Stand (284)

Ask a follower of Bacon what [science] the new philosophy, as it was called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready; “It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all dispatch of business; it has enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land in cars which whirl along without horses, to cross the ocean in ships which run ten knots an hour against the wind. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first-fruits; for it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-point to-morrow.”
From essay (Jul 1837) on 'Francis Bacon' in Edinburgh Review. In Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay and Lady Trevelyan (ed.) The Works of Lord Macaulay Complete (1871), Vol. 6, 222.
Science quotes on:  |  Acceleration (12)  |  Against (332)  |  Agriculture (78)  |  Air (366)  |  Answer (389)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Attain (126)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Automobile (23)  |  Sir Francis Bacon (188)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Business (156)  |  Call (781)  |  Car (75)  |  Cave (17)  |  Correspondence (24)  |  Depth (97)  |  Descend (49)  |  Disease (340)  |  Distance (171)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Effect (414)  |  Electricity (168)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Estuary (3)  |  Exploration (161)  |  Extend (129)  |  Father (113)  |  Fertility (23)  |  First (1302)  |  Form (976)  |  Fruit (108)  |  Furnish (97)  |  Goal (155)  |  Great (1610)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Horse (78)  |  Hour (192)  |  Human (1512)  |  Invisibility (5)  |  Invisible (66)  |  Knot (11)  |  Law (913)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Lighting (5)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mariner (12)  |  Medicine (392)  |  Mining (22)  |  Motion (320)  |  Muscle (47)  |  Never (1089)  |  New (1273)  |  Noxious (8)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Oceanography (17)  |  Office (71)  |  Pain (144)  |  Penetrate (68)  |  Perfect (223)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Point (584)  |  Power (771)  |  Progress (492)  |  Range (104)  |  Rest (287)  |  River (140)  |  Run (158)  |  Sea (326)  |  Ship (69)  |  Soar (23)  |  Soil (98)  |  Splendour (8)  |  Steam Engine (47)  |  Strength (139)  |  Telegraph (45)  |  Thunderbolt (7)  |  Time (1911)  |  Today (321)  |  Tomorrow (63)  |  Unknown (195)  |  Vision (127)  |  Warrior (6)  |  Whirl (10)  |  Will (2350)  |  Wind (141)  |  Yesterday (37)

If a man has a tent made of linen of which the apertures have all been stopped up, and be it twelve bracchia across (over twenty-five feet) and twelve in depth, he will be able to throw himself down from any height without sustaining injury. [His concept of the parachute.]
In Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman, Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 3-4, which notes twelve bracchia is over 25 feet. There are other translations with different units. Da Vinci’s illustration in his notebook showed a pyramid-shaped parachute below which hung a man suspended by a few short cords.
Science quotes on:  |  Aperture (5)  |  Concept (242)  |  Depth (97)  |  Down (455)  |  Himself (461)  |  Injury (36)  |  Linen (8)  |  Man (2252)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Tent (13)  |  Will (2350)

In ancient days two aviators procured to themselves wings. Daedalus flew safely through the middle air and was duly honored on his landing. Icarus soared upwards to the sun till the wax melted which bound his wings and his flight ended in fiasco. In weighing their achievements, there is something to be said for Icarus. The classical authorities tell us that he was only “doing a stunt,” but I prefer to think of him as the man who brought to light a serious constructional defect in the flying machines of his day.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Air (366)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Authority (99)  |  Aviator (2)  |  Bind (26)  |  Bound (120)  |  Classical (49)  |  Defect (31)  |  Doing (277)  |  End (603)  |  Fiasco (2)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Flying Machine (13)  |  Honor (57)  |  Icarus (2)  |  Light (635)  |  Machine (271)  |  Man (2252)  |  Melt (16)  |  Serious (98)  |  Soar (23)  |  Something (718)  |  Stunt (7)  |  Sun (407)  |  Tell (344)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Think (1122)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Upward (44)  |  Wax (13)  |  Weigh (51)  |  Wing (79)

Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.
Bible
Psalm 55:6, The Holy Bible (1815), 475.
Science quotes on:  |  Dove (3)  |  Fly (153)  |  Flying (74)  |  Rest (287)  |  Wing (79)

Some guns were fired to give notice that the departure of the balloon was near. ... Means were used, I am told, to prevent the great balloon's rising so high as might endanger its bursting. Several bags of sand were taken on board before the cord that held it down was cut, and the whole weight being then too much to be lifted, such a quantity was discharged as would permit its rising slowly. Thus it would sooner arrive at that region where it would be in equilibrio with the surrounding air, and by discharging more sand afterwards, it might go higher if desired. Between one and two o’clock, all eyes were gratified with seeing it rise majestically from above the trees, and ascend gradually above the buildings, a most beautiful spectacle. When it was about two hundred feet high, the brave adventurers held out and waved a little white pennant, on both sides of their car, to salute the spectators, who returned loud claps of applause. The wind was very little, so that the object though moving to the northward, continued long in view; and it was a great while before the admiring people began to disperse. The persons embarked were Mr. Charles, professor of experimental philosophy, and a zealous promoter of that science; and one of the Messrs Robert, the very ingenious constructors of the machine.
While U.S. ambassador to France, writing about witnessing, from his carriage outside the garden of Tuileries, Paris, the first manned balloon ascent using hydrogen gas on the afternoon of 1 Dec 1783. A few days earlier, he had watched the first manned ascent in Montgolfier's hot-air balloon, on 21 Nov 1783.
Letter to Sir Charles Banks (1 Dec 1783). In The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: 1783-1788 (1906), Vol. 9, 119-120.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Ascend (30)  |  Balloon (16)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Brave (16)  |  Building (158)  |  Car (75)  |  Jacques-Alexandre-César Charles (2)  |  Clock (51)  |  Cut (116)  |  Down (455)  |  Experimental (193)  |  Eye (440)  |  First (1302)  |  Garden (64)  |  Gas (89)  |  Gradually (102)  |  Great (1610)  |  High (370)  |  Hot (63)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Hydrogen (80)  |  Ingenious (55)  |  Lift (57)  |  Little (717)  |  Long (778)  |  Machine (271)  |  Mean (810)  |  Means (587)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Notice (81)  |  Object (438)  |  Outside (141)  |  People (1031)  |  Permit (61)  |  Person (366)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Prevent (98)  |  Professor (133)  |  Quantity (136)  |  Return (133)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rising (44)  |  Salute (3)  |  Sand (63)  |  Seeing (143)  |  Side (236)  |  Spectacle (35)  |  Tree (269)  |  Two (936)  |  View (496)  |  Watch (118)  |  Weight (140)  |  White (132)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wind (141)  |  Writing (192)

Surely no child, and few adults, have ever watched a bird in flight without envy.
Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman, Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 3.
Science quotes on:  |  Adult (24)  |  Bird (163)  |  Child (333)  |  Envy (15)  |  Flight (101)  |  Surely (101)  |  Watch (118)  |  Watching (11)

The birds can fly,
An’ why can’t I?
In poem, 'Darius Green and his Flying-Machine', Vagabonds: And Other Poems (1869), 115.
Science quotes on:  |  Bird (163)  |  Fly (153)  |  Why (491)

The Secretary of the Navy [Josephus Daniels] has decided that the science of aerial navigation has reached that point where aircraft must form a large part of our naval force for offensive and defensive operations. Nearly all countries having a Navy are giving attention to this subject. This country has not fully realized the value of aeronautics in preparation for war, but it is believed we should take our proper place.
Statement on the future of U.S. Naval Aviation made on the eve of World War I.
News release, U.S. Navy Department, 10 Jan 1914. In Aviation in the United States Navy (1965), 5. In Kevin L. Falk, Why Nations Put to Sea (2000), 48.
Science quotes on:  |  Aerial (11)  |  Aircraft (9)  |  Attention (196)  |  Country (269)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Future (467)  |  Large (398)  |  Must (1525)  |  Navigation (26)  |  Navy (10)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Operation (221)  |  Operations (107)  |  Point (584)  |  Preparation (60)  |  Proper (150)  |  Reach (286)  |  Statement (148)  |  Subject (543)  |  United States (31)  |  Value (393)  |  War (233)  |  World (1850)

The wildest stretch of the imagination of that time would not have permitted us to believe that within a space of fifteen years actually thousands of these machines would be in the air engaged in deadly combat.
From radio message (16 Dec 1923) broadcast on Station WLW, Cincinnati for 20th anniversay of the first flight. As quoted in Peter L. Jakab and Rick Young (eds.), The Published Writings of Wilbur and Orville Wright (2004).
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Airplane (43)  |  Belief (615)  |  Combat (16)  |  Deadly (21)  |  Engage (41)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Machine (271)  |  Space (523)  |  Stretch (39)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Time (1911)  |  Year (963)

There were many many things that were done in the 1920’s that did not survive the long term test. Wing walking is not what you would call a real market.
Pat Bahn
As quoted by Braddock Gaskill, 'TGV Rockets ‘Walking before they can run’', on web page of nasaspaceflight.com (Sep 2005). Article includes explanation, “One of the big business models was to fly up and take a picture of your house and sell it to you for $5. … That was a big deal.”
Science quotes on:  |  Long Term (4)  |  Market (23)  |  Survive (87)

We will build a machine that will fly.
As written in quotation marks by Pierre Lecomte du Noüy in Between Knowing and Believing (1967), 160, as a remark made to his brother, Jacques Montgolfier, in Spring 1783. The quote is also included in Isaac Asimov and Jason A. Shulman, Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), 4. Neither gives a citation. Because the quote is not more widely published, Webmaster doubts its authenticity, and has been unable to verify from an original source. Please contact Webmaster if you know a primary source.
Science quotes on:  |  Build (211)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Machine (271)  |  Will (2350)

What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly? ... wearying himself with climbing upon every ascent, ... bruising himself with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck? And all this, from an imagination that it would be glorious to have the eyes of people looking up at him, and mighty happy to eat, and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the kingdom.
In A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1732), 168. This was written before Montgolfier brothers, pioneer balloonists, were born.
Science quotes on:  |  Ascent (7)  |  Brain (281)  |  Break (109)  |  Bruise (2)  |  Climb (39)  |  Conceive (100)  |  Continual (44)  |  Day (43)  |  Drink (56)  |  Eat (108)  |  Eating (46)  |  Extravagant (10)  |  Eye (440)  |  Fall (243)  |  Flight (101)  |  Fly (153)  |  Glorious (49)  |  Glory (66)  |  Happy (108)  |  Highest (19)  |  Himself (461)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Kingdom (80)  |  Last (425)  |  Look (584)  |  Looking (191)  |  Man (2252)  |  More (2558)  |  Neck (15)  |  Night (133)  |  People (1031)  |  Silly (17)  |  Sleep (81)  |  Study (701)  |  Studying (70)  |  Suppose (158)  |  Top (100)  |  Tree (269)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.