Eddie Rickenbacker

“Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.”

“I believe that if you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully with confidence and faith, and life becomes more s...”

“Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.”

“The obviously inexperienced pilot is the game the scientific air-fighter goes after, and the majority of victories are won that way. But, on the other hand, it is the novice usually who gets...”

“When I was racing, I had learned that you can't set stock in public adoration or your press clippings. By the time I was 26, I'd heard crowds of 100,000 scream my name, but a week later they...”

“When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly thought the clear air, watc...”

“Sports of every sort had always appealed to me.”

“Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.”

“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.”

“Long practise in driving a racing car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed and helps tremendously in getting motor sense...”

“It is the easiest thing in the world to die. The hardest is to live.”

“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through - then follow through.”

“I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know.”

“I am not a labor hater.”

“I'll fight like a wildcat until they nail the lid of my pine box down on me.”