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Wilbur Wright
(16 Apr 1867 - 30 May 1912)
American inventor and aviator , who with his brother Orville, invented the first powered airplane, Flyer, capable of sustained, controlled flight (17 Dec 1903). Orville made the first flight, airborn for 12-sec. Wilbur took the second flight, covering 853-ft (260-m) in 59 seconds.
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Science Quotes by Wilbur Wright (7 quotes)
By the death of Mr. O. Chanute the world has lost one whose labors had to an unusual degree influenced the course of human progress. If he had not lived the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been.
— Wilbur Wright
Writing in Aeronautics in Jan 1911 about Chanute's death, collected in Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Volume Two 1906-1948 (1953), 1013.
For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life.
— Wilbur Wright
Opening line his first letter (13 May 1900) to Octave Chanute. In Marvin W. McFarland (ed.) The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: 1899-1905 (1953), Vol. 1, 13.
I confess that in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years...Ever since, I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions.
— Wilbur Wright
…...
It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge & skill.
— Wilbur Wright
From his first letter (13 May 1900) to Octave Chanute. In Marvin W. McFarland (ed.) The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: 1899-1905 (1953), Vol. 1, 13.
Man, by reason of his greater intellect, can more reasonably hope to equal birds in knowledge than to equal nature in the perfection of her machinery.
— Wilbur Wright
In The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: 1899-1905 (1953), 15.
The desire to fly after the fashion of the birds is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.
— Wilbur Wright
In The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright: Including the Chanute-Wright Letters (1953), 934.
We were about to abandon our efforts when the book of M. Mouillard fell into our hands, and we (since then) continued our investigations with the results before you.
— Wilbur Wright
From interview with M. Frank St. Lahm, L’Aerophile (Jul 1910). Quoted and cited in book review for L.P. Mouillard, Le Vol Sans Battement (Flight Without Flapping), in Journal of the United States Artillery (1912), 37, No. 2, 261.
Quotes by others about Wilbur Wright (7)
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.
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.
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).
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.
My own lifetime spans the Wright Brothers' Kitty Hawk flight and manned-satellite orbiting.
In 'The Wisdom of Wilderness', Life (22 Dec 1967), 63, No. 25, 8.
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.
Wilbur, a bright star among the Wright intellects…
Snippet from Milton’s Diary entry for Sat, 1 Jan 1916. Milton was in good health, and reflecting on his own advancing age (88), compared to the ages reached by other relatives and ancestors who had passed on. In the subject quote, he continued by writing [Wilbur] “…has been gone nearly four years.” Wilbur had died at age 45 (1912) after suffering from typhoid fever.
Thursday, May 30 [1912]. This morning at 3:15, Wilbur passed away, aged 45 years, 1 month, and 14 days. A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great selfreliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadily, he lived and died. Many called - many telegrams. (Probably over a thousand.)
From Milton’s handwritten Diary entry for Thur, 30 May 1912.
See also:
- 16 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wright's birth.
- More for Wilbur Wright on Today in Science History page.
- To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, by James Tobin. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Wright Brothers History.
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) -- 
