Charles Lindbergh Quotes & Sayings

It is not that I believe ideals are unimportant, even among the realities of war; but if a nation is to survive in a hostile world, its ideals must be backed by the hard logic of military practicability. — Charles Lindbergh

Aviation has struck a delicately balanced world, a world where stability was already giving way to the pressure of new dynamic forces, a world dominated by a mechanical, materialist,
Western European civilization. — Charles Lindbergh

Life without risks is not worth living. — Charles Lindbergh

Aviation seems almost a gift from heaven to those Western nations who were already the leaders of their era, strengthening their leadership, their confidence, their dominance over other peoples. — Charles Lindbergh

Individuals are custodians of the life stream
temporal manifestations of far greater being, forming from and returning to their essence like so many dreams. — Charles Lindbergh

I'm not bound to be in aviation at all. I'm here only because I love the sky and flying more than anything else on earth. Of course there's danger; but a certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life. I don't believe in taking foolish chances' but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all. — Charles Lindbergh

I know there is infinity beyond ourselves. I wonder if there is infinity within. — Charles Lindbergh

Man has risen so far above all other species that he competes in ways unique in nature. He fights by means of complicated weapons; he fights for ends remote in time. — Charles Lindbergh

No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. — Charles Lindbergh

It's almost as easy to stand up as it is to sit down. — Charles Lindbergh

Why shouldn't I fly from New York to Paris? I have more than four years of aviation behind me. I've barnstormed over half of the 48 states. I've flown my mail through the worst of nights. — Charles Lindbergh

There is no shorter road to defeat than by entering a war with inadequate preparation. — Charles Lindbergh

I hope my journals relating to World War II will help clarify issues of the past and thereby contribute to understanding the issues and conditions of the present and future. — Charles Lindbergh

How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life? — Charles Lindbergh

My father had been opposed to my flying from the first and had never flown himself. However, he had agreed to go up with me at the first opportunity, and one afternoon he climbed into the cockpit and we flew over the Redwood Falls together. From that day on I never heard a word against my flying and he never missed a chance to ride in the plane. — Charles Lindbergh

Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. — Charles Lindbergh

Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost. — Charles Lindbergh

At first you can stand the spotlight in your eyes. Then it blinds you. Others can see you, but you cannot see them. — Charles Lindbergh

Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance. — Charles Lindbergh

I know myself as mortal, but this raises the question: "What is I?" Am I an individual, or am I an evolving life stream composed of countless selves? — Charles Lindbergh

Under the federal reserve act, panics are scientifically created. The present panic is the first scientifically created one, worked out as we figured, a mathematical equation. — Charles Lindbergh

Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. — Charles Lindbergh

I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many
myself and humanity in flux. — Charles Lindbergh

One boy's a boy, two boys are half a boy; three boys are no boy at all. — Charles Lindbergh

It is about a period in aviation which is now gone, but which was probably more interesting than any the future will bring. As time passes, the perfection of machinery tends to insulate man from contact with the elements in which he lives. The 'stratosphere' planes of the future will cross the ocean without any sense of the water below. Like a train tunneling through a mountain, they will be aloof from both the problems and the beauty of the earth's surface. — Charles Lindbergh

No right of preference exists in favor of person, property, or business. Personal claims and ambitions must yield in favor of whatever best serves the general welfare. — Charles Lindbergh

Flying has torn apart the relationship of space and time: it uses our old clock but with new yardsticks. — Charles Lindbergh

We talk about spreading democracy and freedom all over the world, but they are to us words rather than conditions. We haven't even got them here in America, and the farther we get into this war the farther we get away from democracy and freedom. Where is it leading us to, and when will it end? The war might stop this winter, but that is improbable. It may go on for fifty years or more. That also is improbable. The elements are too conflicting and confused to form any accurate judgment of its length. There may be a series of wars, one after another, going on indefinitely. — Charles Lindbergh

After reading ... accounts ... of minor accidents of light, it is little wonder that the average man would far rather watch someone else fly and read of the narrow escapes from death when some pilot has had a forced landing or a blowout, than to ride himself. Even in the postwar days of now obsolete equipment, nearly all of the serious accidents were caused by inexperienced pilots who where then allowed to fly or attempt to fly-without license or restrictions about anything they could coax into the air. — Charles Lindbergh

To be a true Progressive it is not sufficient to stand up and say that one belives in what has been promulgated as progressive principles. One must be progressive in heart and active in promoting the progressive principles of today, tomorrow and always. There is no resting point, for humanity is ever ascending to a higher and better goal. — Charles Lindbergh

This is earth again, the earth where I've lived and now will live once more ... I've been to eternity and back. I know how the dead would feel to live again. — Charles Lindbergh

If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. — Charles Lindbergh

You ask what my conclusions are, rereading my journals and looking back on World War II from the vantage point of quarter century in time? We won the war in a military sense; but in a broader sense, it seems to me we lost it, for our Western civilization is less respected and secure than it was before. — Charles Lindbergh

Wind, weather, power, load - gradually these elements stop churning in my mind. It's less a decision of logic than a feeling, the kind of feeling that comes when you gauge the distance to be jumped between two stones across a brook. Something within you disengages itself from your body and travels ahead with your vision to make the test. You can feel it try the jump as you stand looking. Then uncertainty gives way to the conviction that it can or can't be done. — Charles Lindbergh

If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. — Charles Lindbergh

I realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress. — Charles Lindbergh

The improvement of our way of life is more important than the spreading of it. If we make it satisfactory enough, it will spread automatically. If we do not, no strength of arms can permanently oppose it. — Charles Lindbergh

And if at times you renounce experience and mind's heavy logic, it seems that the world has rushed along on its orbit, leaving you alone flying above a forgotten cloud bank, somewhere in the solitude of interstellar space. — Charles Lindbergh

Our survival, the future of our civilization, possibly the existence of mankind, depends on American leadership — Charles Lindbergh

Time is an abstraction which, on earth, exists only for the human brain it has evolved. — Charles Lindbergh

We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races. — Charles Lindbergh

The readiness to blame a dead pilot for an accident is nauseating, but it has been the tendency ever since I can remember. What pilot has not been in positions where he was in danger and
where perfect judgment would have advised against going? — Charles Lindbergh

In time of war, truth is always replaced by propaganda. — Charles Lindbergh

To be absolutely alone for the first time in the cockpit of a plane hundreds of feet above the ground is an experience never to be forgotten. — Charles Lindbergh

Is civilization progress? The challenge, I think, is clear; and, as clearly, the final answer will be given not by our amassing of knowledge, or by the discoveries of our science, or by the speed of our aircraft, but by the effect of our civilized activities as a whole have upon the quality of our planet's life-the life of plants and animals as that of men. — Charles Lindbergh

Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere. — Charles Lindbergh

Decades spent in contact with science and its vehicles have directed my mind and senses to areas beyond their reach. I now see scientific accomplishments as a path, not an end; a path leading to and disappearing in mystery. — Charles Lindbergh

We are all consumers and should all be producers. — Charles Lindbergh

The idea of racial inferiority or superiority is foreign to me. I can't feel inferior or superior to another man because of race, or in any way antagonistic to him. I judge by the individual, not by his race, and have always done so. I would rather have one of my children marry into a good family of any race than into a bad family of any other race. — Charles Lindbergh

What makes human power erupt like a volcano? What destroy's it? The civilizations of Rome, Greece, Egypt, China were all eruptions from a human core. — Charles Lindbergh

Consciousness grows independent of the ordinary senses. — Charles Lindbergh

We are in the grip of a scientific materialism, caught in a vicious cycle where our security today seems to depend on regimentation and weapons which will ruin us tomorrow. — Charles Lindbergh

Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values ... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it. — Charles Lindbergh

True, the fragile bodies of his fellows do not weigh down his plane; true, the fretful minds of weaker men are missing from his crowded cabin; but as his airship keeps its course he holds communion with those rare spirits that inspire to intrepidity and by their sustaining potency give strength to arm, resource to mind, content to soul. Alone? With what other companions would man fly to whom the choice were given? — Charles Lindbergh

Why should anyone think a white skin superior in evaluating the qualities of human life? I did not really admire a white skin so much myself. Did I not prefer the brown skin that came with exposure to the sun? — Charles Lindbergh

We must learn from the sermons of Christ, the wisdom of Laotzu, the teachings of Buddha. — Charles Lindbergh

History has recorded nothing so dramatic in design, nor so skillfully manipulated, as this attempt to create the National Reserve Association, or the Federal Reserve. — Charles Lindbergh

The Jews are one of the principle forces attempting to lead the U.S. into the war. The Jews greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our Government. I am saying that the LEADERS of the Jewish race wish to involve us in the war for reasons that are NOT AMERICAN. — Charles Lindbergh

Peace is a virgin who dare not show her face without Strength, her father, for protection. — Charles Lindbergh

I learned that danger is relative, and the inexperience can be a magnifying glass. — Charles Lindbergh

If we can combine our knowledge of science with the wisdom of wildness, if we can nurture civilization through roots in the primitive, man's potentialities appear to be unbounded. — Charles Lindbergh

Time is no longer endless or the horizon destitute of hope. — Charles Lindbergh

There is no better way to give comfort to an enemy than to divide the people of a nation over the issue of foreign war. — Charles Lindbergh

Possibly everyone will travel by air in another fifty years. I'm not sure I like the idea of millions of planes flying around overhead. I love the sky's unbroken solitude. I don't like to think of it cluttered up by aircraft, as roads are cluttered up by cars. I feel like the western pioneer when he saw barbed-wire fence lines encroaching on his open plains. The success of his venture brought the end of the life he loved. — Charles Lindbergh

Whatever a man imagines he can attain, if he doesn't become too arrogant and encroach on the rights of the gods. — Charles Lindbergh

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning. — Charles Lindbergh

We are compelled to work more hours per day, receive less pay per hour, pay more for what we buy, and recieve less for what we sell. The consequence is that we must work harder and more hours per day than we should, and in the end have less than what is due to us as our part of the advantages, conveniences and opportunities resulting from advancing civilization. — Charles Lindbergh

Man is a mixture of desires that extend beyond his knowledge and often result in action conflicting with rationality. — Charles Lindbergh

The life of an aviator seemed to me ideal. It involved skill. It brought adventure. It made use of the latest developments of science. Mechanical engineers were fettered to factories and drafting boards while pilots have the freedom of wind with the expanse of sky. There were times in an aeroplane when it seemed I had escaped mortality to look down on earth like a God. — Charles Lindbergh

Is he alone who has courage on his right hand and faith on his left hand? — Charles Lindbergh

Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die? — Charles Lindbergh

Without death there would be no awareness of life, and the recurring selection and renewal that has caused life's progress would be ended. — Charles Lindbergh

We are in grave danger of losing forever not just millions of years of evolution on earth, but the eons of change that have produced man and his natural environment. — Charles Lindbergh

Here was a place where men and life and death had reached the lowest form of degradation. How could any reward in national progress even faintly justify the establishment and operation of
such a place? — Charles Lindbergh

I have seen the science I worshiped, and the aircraft I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve. — Charles Lindbergh

I was astonished at the effect my successful landing in France had on the nations of the world. To me, it was like a match lighting a bonfire. — Charles Lindbergh

It is not the willingness to kill on the part of our soldiers which most concerns me. That is an inherent part of war. It is our lack of respect for even the admirable characteristics of our enemy; for courage, for suffering, for death, for his willingness to die for his beliefs, for his companies and squadrons which go forth, one after another, to annihilation against our superior training and equipment. — Charles Lindbergh

Life's values originate in circumstances over which the individual has no control. — Charles Lindbergh

Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see . — Charles Lindbergh

I had four sandwiches when I left New York. I only ate one and a half during the whole trip and drank a little water. I don't suppose I had time to eat any more because, you know, it surprised me how short a distance it is to Europe. — Charles Lindbergh

The greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government. — Charles Lindbergh

Alone? Is he alone at whose right side rides Courage, with Skill within the cockpit and faith upon the left? Does solitude surround the brave when Adventure leads the way and Ambition reads the dials? Is there no company with him, for whom the air is cleft by Daring and the darkness made light by Emprise? — Charles Lindbergh

The essence of life, I concluded, did not lie in the material. It penetrated, but was not bound to, the physical world of science. — Charles Lindbergh

I am shocked at the attitude of our American troops. They have no respect for death, the courage of an enemy soldier, or many of the ordinary decencies of life. — Charles Lindbergh

We found a water pipe, tied the flag to it and put it up. Then all hell broke loose below. Troops cheered, ships blew whistles, some men openly wept. — Charles Lindbergh

I don't believe in taking unnecessary risks, but a life without risk isn't worth living. — Charles Lindbergh

It is always easier to deal in truth and honesty and follow these to their legitimate ends, than it is to construct and adjust a false superstructure upon a false base. — Charles Lindbergh

Is cruelty a moral judgment if it is fundamental to forms of life? Who is man to say that the workings of nature, and therefore of the divine plan of which he himself is part, are cruel? — Charles Lindbergh

We can so reconstruct society that it will be self-perpetuating instead of as now, self-exhaustive. — Charles Lindbergh

I don't believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished if we don't take any chances at all. — Charles Lindbergh

Democracy can only spring from within a nation itself, only from the hearts and minds of its people. — Charles Lindbergh

[I] grew up as a disciple of science. I know its fascination. I have felt the godlike power man derives from his machines. — Charles Lindbergh

The individual is at the apex of his species' past, at the entrance to its future. — Charles Lindbergh

The forces of Hannibal, Drake and Napoleon moved at best with the horses' gallop or the speed of wind on sail. Now, aviation brings a new concept of time and distance to the affairs of men. It demands adaptability to change, places a premium on quickness of thought and speed of action. — Charles Lindbergh

Accuracy means something to me. It's vital to my sense of values. I've learned not to trust people who are inaccurate. Every aviator knows that if mechanics are inaccurate, aircraft crash. If pilots are inaccurate, they get lost-sometimes killed. In my profession life itself depends on accuracy. — Charles Lindbergh

Shut your eyes and you will know what I mean by thought entombed in darkness. Light comes through the senses, and not only through the sense of sight. When you see without feeling, you are still partly blind; you lack the inner light that brings awareness. Awareness requires the interplay of every faculty, the use of your entire being as an eye. — Charles Lindbergh

Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter. — Charles Lindbergh

Unless science is controlled by a greater moral force, it will become the Antichrist prophesied by the early Christians. — Charles Lindbergh

The manipulation of credit has been the most potent of all methods employed by financiers as a means of controlling commerce and fixing prices.We are all consumers and should all be producers.This credit is a tax upon humanity as if government bonds were issued and people were obliged to pay it. — Charles Lindbergh

I owned the world that hour as I rode over it. free of the earth, free of the mountains, free of the clouds, but how inseparably I was bound to them. — Charles Lindbergh