Quotes from Eddie Rickenbacker

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

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

Some friends are better shots than are casual enemies.

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

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

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

The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid.

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.

Never count on the crowd to take care of you.

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.

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

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

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

The key to success, is to think things through and then follow through.

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

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

Courage is COMPETENCE!

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

The excitement of automobile racing did not compare with what I knew must come with aeroplane fighting in France.

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

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

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, 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.

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.