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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > Orville Wright Quotes

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Orville Wright
(19 Aug 1871 - 30 Jan 1948)

American inventor and aviator , who with his brother, Wilbur, invented the first powered airplane, Flyer, capable of sustained, controlled flight (17 Dec 1903). At Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville made the first ever manned powered flight, airborn for 12 sec.


Science Quotes by Orville Wright (2 quotes)

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Successful—four flights on Thursday morning—took off with motors from level ground—average speed thirty miles an hour—longest flight 59 seconds—inform press—home for Christmas—Orville.
— Orville Wright
Telegram (17 Dec 1903) to his father, Bishop Wright, about the first flight in an airplane, at Kitty Hawk, N.C. As quoted in Heinz Gartmann, Rings Around the World: Man’s Progress From Steam Engine to Satellite (1959), 78.
Science quotes on:  |  Average (89)  |  Christmas (13)  |  Flight (101)  |  Ground (222)  |  Home (184)  |  Hour (192)  |  Inform (50)  |  Level (69)  |  Morning (98)  |  Motor (23)  |  Press (21)  |  Speed (66)  |  Successful (134)  |  Telegram (5)

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.
— Orville Wright
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:  |  Aeronautics (15)  |  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)



Quotes by others about Orville Wright (8)

In honoring the Wright Brothers, it is customary and proper to recognize their contribution to scientific progress. But I believe it is equally important to emphasize the qualities in their pioneering life and the character in man that such a life produced. The Wright Brothers balanced sucess with modesty, science with simplicity. At Kitty Hawk their intellects and senses worked in mutual support. They represented man in balance, and from that balance came wings to lift a world.
Speech, quoted in Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh (2000), 347. In 1949, Lindbergh gave a speech when he received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.
Science quotes on:  |  Balance (82)  |  Biography (254)  |  Brother (47)  |  Character (259)  |  Contribution (93)  |  Customary (18)  |  Emphasize (25)  |  Equally (129)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Kitty Hawk (5)  |  Life (1870)  |  Lift (57)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modesty (18)  |  Mutual (54)  |  Pioneer (37)  |  Produced (187)  |  Progress (492)  |  Proper (150)  |  Recognize (136)  |  Represent (157)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Progress (14)  |  Sense (785)  |  Simplicity (175)  |  Success (327)  |  Support (151)  |  Wing (79)  |  Work (1402)  |  World (1850)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the clown.
In Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (1980), 34.
Science quotes on:  |  Brother (47)  |  Clown (2)  |  Christopher Columbus (16)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Robert Fulton (8)  |  Genius (301)  |  Implication (25)  |  Laugh (50)  |  Laughter (34)

Progress may have been all right once, but it went on too long;
I think progress began to retrogress when Wilbur and Orville started tinkering around in Dayton and at Kitty Hawk, because I believe that two Wrights made a wrong.
From poem 'Come, Come, Kerouac! My Generation is Beater Than Yours', in magazine New Yorker (4 Apr 1959).
Science quotes on:  |  Kitty Hawk (5)  |  Long (778)  |  Progress (492)  |  Right (473)  |  Start (237)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tinkering (6)  |  Two (936)  |  Wilbur Wright (14)  |  Wrong (246)

The gentleman [Mr. Taber] from New York says [agricultural research] is all foolish. Yes; it was foolish when Burbank was experimenting with wild cactus. It was foolish when the Wright boys went down to Kitty Hawk and had a contraption there that they were going to fly like birds. It was foolish when Robert Fulton tried to put a boiler into a sail boat and steam it up the Hudson. It was foolish when one of my ancestors thought the world was round and discovered this country so that the gentleman from New York could become a Congressman. (Laughter.) ... Do not seek to stop progress; do not seek to put the hand of politics on these scientific men who are doing a great work. As the gentleman from Texas points out, it is not the discharge of these particular employees that is at stake, it is all the work of investigation, of research, of experimentation that has been going on for years that will be stopped and lost.
Speaking (28 Dec 1932) as a member of the 72nd Congress, early in the Great Depression, in opposition to an attempt to eliminate a small amount from the agricultural appropriation bill. As quoted in 'Mayor-Elect La Guardia on Research', Science (1933), New Series, 78, No. 2031, 511.
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Seldom has there occurred a more pitifully tragic disaster than the sudden fall of the Wright aeroplane, involving the death of that promising young officer Lieut. Thomas Selfridge, and inflicting shocking injuries on the talented inventor, Orville Wright. But although the accident is deplorable, it should not be allowed to discredit the art of aeroplane navigation. If it emphasizes the risks, there is nothing in the mishap to shake our faith in the principles upon which the Wright brothers built their machine, and achieved such brilliant success.
In Scientific American (Sep 1908). As cited in '50, 100 & 150 Years Ago', Scientific American (Sep 2008), 299, No. 3, 14.
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Samuel Pierpoint Langley, at that time regarded as one of the most distinguished scientists in the United States … evidently believed that a full sized airplane could be built and flown largely from theory alone. This resulted in two successive disastrous plunges into the Potomac River, the second of which almost drowned his pilot. This experience contrasts with that of two bicycle mechanics Orville and Wilbur Wright who designed, built and flew the first successful airplane. But they did this after hundreds of experiments extending over a number of years.
In article Total Quality: Its Origins and its Future (1995), published at the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement.
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We must conquer [the atmosphere] in our struggle for existence. Now that our aeronauts Orville and Wilbur Wright have learned to fly, we must learn to utilize the air just as the mariners have learned to utilize the winds and avoid the storms.
From Address (16 Mar 1909) at Columbia University, printed in 'Meteorology of the Future', Popular Science Monthly (Dec 1910), 78, 22.
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Thursday, December 17 [1903]. In the afternoon about 5:30 we received the following telegram from Orvill[e], dated Kitty Hawk, N.C., Dec. 17. “Bishop M. Wright: “Success four flights Thursday morning all against a twenty-one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through the air thirty one miles—longest 57 seconds. XXX home Christmas. Orville Wright.”
From Milton’s handwritten Diary entry for Thur, 17 Dec 1903. Milton is now age 75.
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See also:

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
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