Eddie Rickenbacker quotes:

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.

I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know, and I'll fight like a wildcat until they nail the lid of my pine box down on me.

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.

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

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.

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 the famous ace by doing at some moment the unexpected thing.

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, watching the earth below, and the men on it, no bigger than ants.

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

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

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.

Let the moment come when nothing is left but life, and you will find that you do not hesitate over the fate of material possessions.

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, which is rather the feel of your engine than the sound of it, a thing you get through your bones and nerves rather than simply your ears.

I shall never ask any pilot to go on a mission that I won't go on.

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

I am not a labor hater.

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

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 couldn't remember who I was. You're a hero today and a bum tomorrow - hero to zero, I sometimes say.

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

Some friends are better shots than are casual enemies.

The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business is to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down.

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.

Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do.

Never count on the crowd to take care of you.

I would rather have a million friends than a million dollars.

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.

The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid.

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

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

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.

I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder.

I don't care what you cover the seats with as long as you cover them with assholes.

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.

I pay those guys to fly, so let them fly. I'll be damned if I'll pay them to just sit there.

The better I shoot, the less I have to maneuver.

The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid. It is the easiest thing in the world to die. The hardest is to live.

In this business, you find the enemy, then go after and destroy him. Everything else is rubbish!

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.

Flying saucers are real. Too many good men have seen them, that don't have hallucinations.

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 through the clean air, watching the earth below.

I am not such an egotist as to believe that God has spared me because I am I. I believe there is work for me to do and that I am spared to do it, just as you are.

The smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Selfdistrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

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.

Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live. The guarantee of continuity is quality.