Wright Brothers (Orville & Wilbur)

The public is very enthusiastic about our machine.

We have been very busy with the demonstrations of our machine.

The machine has been flown in all sorts of weather.

We have been making flights of over an hour in length.

The machine is now a commercial success.

We have been very busy with the manufacture of our machines.

Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor.

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.

The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.

The airplane is a machine that makes the world a smaller place.

We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity.

The only birds that speak are parrots, and they don’t fly very high.

I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for 50 years. Ever since I have distrusted myself and every time I think that a particular thing will not be done, I recall that it is probably a wrong conclusion.

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their monotonous lives, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, on the wings of the wind.

We could not understand how it was that the best scientists could not fly a machine. We thought that they must be working on the wrong principle.

The course of the experiment was not exactly according to program. The machine started to make a series of dives and dashes in various directions. It was a rather wild ride.

It was impossible to convince the people generally that we were not a pair of lunatics.

For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has progressed to an incurable stage.

If we worked on the assumption that what is currently regarded as impossible is really impossible, we should never have made any progress.

No flights of any kind were made except those of our own machine, which, strange to say, did not become a public amusement.