Quotes about flight
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Charles Webster Leadbeater photo
Vikram Sarabhai photo
Rebecca West photo
Gianfranco Ravasi photo
Bhimsen Joshi photo
Francesco Dall'Ongaro photo

“Life has two wings : one, sorrow; one, delight;
Love gives it pinions, God directs its flight.”

Francesco Dall'Ongaro (1808–1873) Italian poet, playwright and librettist

Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 308.
Original: (it) Ha due ali la vita : il gaudio e il duolo;
L’amor la impenna, e Dio dirige il volo.
Original: (it) Stornelli, "Una Vedova ad una Sjéosa".

William Bartram photo
Jackson Browne photo
William Thomson photo

“I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation.””

William Thomson (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.
As a response to Major B. F. S. Baden Powell's request to join the Aeronautical Society, December 8, 1896 http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/letters.html#baden-powell.
Often reproduced out of context and without citation to any primary source as "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible", like in The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (1984) by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, p. 236

John Steinbeck photo
Kim Hyon-hui photo

“The moment I boarded the flight I was thinking, 'This is an enemy state.'”

Kim Hyon-hui (1962) former North Korean agent

But then, placing the bomb, I was nervous, anxious, scared of being caught. I had a brief moment thinking that all the people in this plane will die, but I was frightened to even have such feelings. I wasn’t supposed to have such feelings. I was trained only to take orders like a robot. I tried to get rid of the feelings by thinking that for the sake of reunification these people had to be sacrificed. In North Korea, you can’t have these doubts, because if you do, it means your ideology has been corrupted and you’ll be executed or sent to a prison camp.
Interview with NBC (23 January 2018)

Bob Katter photo

“No, I'm not interested, don't lead me into your rubbish, don't you keep taking us on your flights of fancy. Your city lily pad lefty map mindset.”

Bob Katter (1945) Australian politician

Source: Media Briefing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE2Ned5Tgwg?oneclick=true (Thursday, 13 February 2020)

“Warriors speak of shamanism as a magical, mysterious bird which has paused in its flight for a moment in order to give man hope and purpose; warriors live under the wind of that bird, which they call the "bird of wisdom," the "bird of freedom."”

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "The Power of Silence" (Chapter 18)

Henry Miller photo

“…and i am learning to hope
like a bird
learns
its first
affair
with wind
and sun
like an orange
learns
to take flight
into the mouth
of a boy
in summer…”

Andrés Montoya (1968–1999) American writer

Source: Excerpt from his poem “three thousand lost kisses” https://poets.org/poem/three-thousand-lost-kisses

David Attenborough photo

“Who escaped the father steps T the Iowan the flight before jump pull the fiare”

Twice the capture the ex cuff the