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Amelia Earhart

American aviation pioneer and author (1897-1939)

Amelia Mary Earhart (born 24 July 1897 - missing in western Pacific Ocean from 2 July 1937) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.

Quotes

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Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
 
The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
 
I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.
 
Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.
  • Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.[1]
  • Courage is the price that
    Life exacts for granting peace.
    The soul that knows it not, knows no release
    From little things    :
    Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
    Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
    The sound of wings.
    • Poetry written around the time of the breaking of her "tenuous engagement" to Samuel Chapman (c. 1928), published in Amelia, My Courageous Sister : Biography of Amelia Earhart (1987) by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, p. 74; also in Amelia : A Life of the Aviation Legend (1999) by Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, p. 38
  • How can Life grant us boon of living, compensate
    For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
    Unless we dare
    The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
    With courage to behold the restless day,
    And count it fair.
    • Poetry written around the time of breaking of her "tenuous engagement" to Samuel Chapman (c. 1928), published in Amelia, My Courageous Sister : Biography of Amelia Earhart (1987) by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, p. 74; also in Amelia: A Life of the Aviation Legend (1999) by Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon, p. 38
  • Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.
  • I understood. I was a girl-a "nervous lady." I might jump out. There had to be somebody on hand to grab my ankle as I went over. It was no use to explain I had seen aeroplanes before and wasn't excitable. I was not to be permitted to go alone in the front cockpit.
    • On her first experience flying, and the skepticism of others. '20 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928), p. 47
  • In soloing—as in other activities—it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it. Almost every beginner hops off with a whoop of joy, though he is likely to end his flight with something akin to the D.T.'s.
    • 20 Hrs., 40 Min. (1928), p. 16
  • As I look back on the flight I think two questions have been asked me most frequently. First: Was I afraid? Secondly: What did I wear?
  • I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly.
    • Note to George P. Putnam, on the date of their wedding (7 February 1931), as quoted in The Sound of Wings (1989) by Mary S. Lovell
  • The time to worry is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard. It retards reactions, makes one unfit. . . . Hamlet would have been a bad aviator. He worried too much.
    • Original forward for the writings in Last Flight, as quoted in Lost Star : The Search for Amelia Earhart (1995) by Randall Brink, p. 85
  • The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
    • As quoted in Soaring Wings : A Biography of Amelia Earhart (1939) by George Palmer Putnam, p. 83
    • Cited as Amelia Earhart, "My Husband," Redbook magazine (Sept. 1933) in Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings (1989), p. 101.
  • The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.

Last Flight (1937)

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Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.
Notes made in preparations for her last flight, edited by George P. Putnam,
  • Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.
    • p. 50
  • Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.
    • p. 51
  • In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful "break" was apt to lurk just around the corner.
    • p. 70
  • Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.


Disputed

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  • Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do.
    • As quoted in Have Fun with American Heroes : Activities, Projects, and Fascinating Facts (2005) by David C. King, p. 82; this is also attributed to Dawson Trotman in Through Her Eyes : Life and Ministry of Women in the Muslim World (2005) by Marti Smith, p. 116
  • Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done.
    • As quoted in "She Drew Horses..." (2006) by Kelli Swan, p. 42


Misattributed

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  • Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.
    • Chinese proverb, as quoted in The Homiletic Review, Vol. 90 (1925), p. 363
  • No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
    • Originally Frederick William Faber, sermon "On Kindness in General", found in Spiritual Conferences, a collection of his oratory, ca. 1860
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