Nature's creative power is far beyond man's instinct of destruction.

It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning...and let anything better come as a surprise.

Well, gentlemen, do you believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines heavier than air? ... You ask yourselves doubtless if this apparatus, so marvellously adapted for aerial locomotion, is susceptible of receiving greater speed. It is not worth while to conquer space if we cannot devour it. I wanted the air to be a solid support to me, and it is. I saw that to struggle against the wind I must be stronger than the wind, and I am.

All that is impossible remains to be accomplished.

He who is mistaken in an action which he sincerely believes to be right may be an enemy, but retains our esteem.

There are no impossible obstacles; there are just stronger and weaker wills, that’s all!

On the morrow the horizon was covered with clouds- a thick and impenetrable curtain between earth and sky, which unhappily extended as far as the Rocky Mountains. It was a fatality!