Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur)

The machine had scarcely cleared the ground when it began to turn up, and the next instant it darted into the ground.

It is not the man who has done the most, but the man who has done the best, who is most deserving of praise.

The best thing about being a man of science is that you never have to be bored.

The only way to learn to fly is to fly.

The greatest value of our experiments has been their negative results.

It was the first time in the history of the world that a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.

We had taken up the invention of the flying machine as a sport.

We thought that we had solved a problem, but we had only created a new one.

Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.

The age of the flying machine is coming; it is not here yet, but it is coming.

We were not looking for a fortune, but we were looking for a solution.

The machine itself was nothing; the method was everything.

Our experiments were made on a larger scale than those of any other investigator.

The fact that the machine did not fall apart at the first gust of wind was a great encouragement.

We have found that the bird is a much more intelligent creature than we had supposed.

The greatest obstacle to progress is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.

We do not intend to fly for money, but for the love of the art.

It was a beautiful machine and it worked.

We had to be our own mechanics, our own engineers, and our own scientists.

The problem was not to build a machine that would fly, but to build a machine that would fly safely.