Eddie Rickenbacker famous quotes

03-24-2025

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

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational
I can give you a six-word formula for success: "Think things through - then follow through."
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Inspiration #Thinking #Giving
In this business, you find the enemy, then go after and destroy him. Everything else is rubbish!
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Military #Enemy #Rubbish
Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Impossible #Aviation #Achieve
I don't care what you cover the seats with as long as you cover them with assholes.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Long #Care
I would rather have a million friends than a million dollars.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Dollars #Wealth #Million Dollars
The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Character #Imagination #Independence
The better I shoot, the less I have to maneuver.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker
Flying saucers are real. Too many good men have seen them, that don't have hallucinations.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Military #Real #Men
Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Sports #Military #Fighting
Flying is one of the safest jobs in the Army as long as you don't drop out. If you do drop out, you are a dead man, and dropping out means, usually, that you have made a mistake or let go of your grip.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Letting Go #Jobs #Mistake
The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business is to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Fighting #Risk #Enemy
If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live. The guarantee of continuity is quality.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Quality #Guarantees #Aging
Major Richard Bong was an example of the tragic and terrible price we must pay to maintain principles of human rights, of greater value than life itself. This gallant Air Force hero will be remembered because he made his final contribution to aviation in the dangerous role of test pilot of an untried experimental plane, a deed that places him among the stout-hearted pioneers who gave their lives in the conquest of sky and space.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Hero #Space #Rights
I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Interesting #Warfare #Murder
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.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Funny #Water #Complaining
Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life become more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational
The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business in to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down. His trained hand and eye and judgment are as much a part of his armament as his machinegun, and a fiftyfifty chance is the worst he will take or should take except where the show is of the kind that . . . justifies the sacrifice of plane or pilot.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Eye #Fighting #Sacrifice
The smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Selfdistrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Fighting #Vanity #Quality
And I have yet to find one single individual who has attained conspicuous success in bringing down enemy aeroplanes who can be said to be spoiled either by his successes or by the generous congratulations of his comrades. If he were capable of being spoiled he would not have had the character to have won continuous victories, for the smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Self-distrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Congratulations #Character #Fighting
I believe that if you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you will hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience. This is the sure way to win victories over inner defeat. It is the way a humble person meets life or death.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Believe #Humble #Positive Thinking
If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live. Old families, old customs, old styles survive because they are fit to survive. The guarantee of continuity is quality. Submerge the good in a flood of the new, and good will come back to join the good which the new brings with it. Old-fashioned hospitality, old-fashioned politeness, old-fashioned honor in business had qualities of survival. These will come back.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Style #Survival #Honor
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.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Air #Wings #Machines
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.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Congratulations #Air #Victory
I pay those guys to fly, so let them fly. I'll be damned if I'll pay them to just sit there.
-- Eddie Rickenbacker

#Guy #Pay

You may also like:

Alvin C. York
Arthur Godfrey
Radio Broadcaster
Billy Bishop
Flying ace
Charles Lindbergh
Aviator
Chester W. Nimitz
Author
Chuck Yeager
Test pilot
Curtis LeMay
Military Commander
Ernst Udet
Flying ace
Georges Guynemer
Henry H. Arnold
Hermann Goring
James McCudden
Engineer
Jimmy Doolittle
Officer commanding
John J. Pershing
Military officer
Louis Bleriot
Aviator
Manfred von Richthofen
Freiherr
Oswald Boelcke
Pancho Barnes
Aviator
Pappy Boyington
William Halsey
Military Commander