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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

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The Readiness To Blame

Charles Lindbergh

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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?

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I Began To Feel That I Lived On A Higher Plane Than The Skeptics Of The Ground; One That Was Richer Because Of Its Very Association With The Element Of Danger They Dreaded, Because It Was Freer Of The Earth To Which They Were Bound. In Flying, I Tasted A Wine Of The Gods Of Which They Could Know Nothing. Who Valued Life More Highly, The Aviators Who Spent It On The Art They Loved, Or These Misers Who Doled It Out Like Pennies Through Their Antlike Days? I Decided That If I Could Fly For Ten Years Before I Was Killed In A Crash, It Would Be A Worthwhile Trade For An Ordinary Life Time.

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A Certain Amount Of Danger Is Essential To The Quality Of Life.

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When I Watch Species Other Than My Own, Their Instinct's Wisdom Is What Most Impresses And Disturbs Me.

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Science, Freedom, Beauty, Adventure: What More Could You Ask Of Life? Aviation Combined All The Elements I Loved. There Was Science In Each Curve Of An Airfoil, In Each Angle Between Strut And Wire, In The Gap Of A Spark Plug Or The Color Of The Exhaust Flame. There Was Freedom In The Unlimited Horizon, On The Open Fields Where One Landed. A Pilot Was Surrounded By Beauty Of Earth And Sky. He Brushed Treetops With The Birds, Leapt Valleys And Rivers, Explored The Cloud Canyons He Had Gazed At As A Child. Adventure Lay In Each Puff Of Wind.

Science Intensifies Religious Truth By Cleansing It Of Ignorance And Superstition.

Air Power Is New To All Our Countries. It Brings Advantages To Some And Weakens Others; It Calls For Readjustment Everywhere.

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.

But 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.

I Would Rather Live One Day In Maui Than One Month In New York.

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.

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It May Be Interesting To Note How Many Statesmen There Are Who Believe That The Cost Of Living Can Be Reduced By Making The People Of Other Countries Help To Feed And Clothe Us.

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?

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.

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.

It Is The Greatest Shot Of Adrenaline To Be Doing What You Have Wanted To Do So Badly. You Almost Feel Like You Could Fly Without The Plane.

Our Survival, The Future Of Our Civilization, Possibly The Existence Of Mankind, Depends On American Leadership

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?

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Life Is Like A Landscape. You Live In The Midst Of It But Can Describe It Only From The Vantage Point Of Distance.

[i] Grew Up As A Disciple Of Science. I Know Its Fascination. I Have Felt The Godlike Power Man Derives From His Machines.

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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.

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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.

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.

My Aging Body Transmits An Ageless Life Stream. Molecular And Atomic Replacement Change Life's Composition. Molecules Take Part In Structure And In Training, Countless Trillions Of Them. After My Death, The Molecules Of My Being Will Return To The Earth And Sky. They Came From The Stars. I Am Of The Stars.

The Essence Of Life, I Concluded, Did Not Lie In The Material. It Penetrated, But Was Not Bound To, The Physical World Of Science.

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.

Then What Am I - The Body Substance Which I Can See With My Eyes And Feel With My Hands? Or Am I This Realization, This Greater Understanding Which Dwells Within It, Yet Expands Through The Universe Outside; A Part Of All Existence, Powerless But Without Need For Power; Immersed In Solitude, Yet In Contact With All Creation? There Are Moments When The Two Appear Inseparable, And Others When They Could Be Cut Apart By The Merest Flash Of Light.

I Have Seen The Science I Worshiped, And The Aircraft I Loved, Destroying The Civilization I Expected Them To Serve.

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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.

While My Hand Is On The Stick, My Feet On The Rudder, And My Eyes On The Compass, This Consciousness, Like A Winged Messenger, Goes Out To Visit The Waves Below, Testing The Warmth Of Water, The Speed Of Wind, The Thickness Of Intervening Clouds. It Goes North To The Glacial Coasts Of Greenland, Over The Horizon To The Edge Of Dawn, Ahead To Ireland, England, And The Continent Of Europe, Away Through Space To The Moon And Stars, Always Returning, Unwillingly, To The Mortal Duty Of Seeing That The Limbs And Muscles Have Attended Their Routine While It Was Gone.

One Boy's A Boy, Two Boys Are Half A Boy; Three Boys Are No Boy At All.

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.

When The President Signs This Act, The Invisible Government By The Money Power Will Be Legalized.

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.

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?

As Civilization Advances, Man Grows Unconscious Of The Primitive Elements Of Life; He Is Separated From Them By His Perfection Of Material Techniques.

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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.

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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.

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Why Does One Want To Walk Wings? Why Force One's Body From A Plane To Make A Parachute Jump? Why Should Man Want To Fly At All? People Often Ask These Questions. But What Civilization Was Not Founded On Adventure, And How Long Could One Exist Without It? Some Answer The Attainment Of Knowledge. Some Say Wealth, Or Power, Is Sufficient Cause. I Believe The Risks I Take Are Justified Y The Sheer Love Of The Life I Lead.

Without Death There Would Be No Awareness Of Life, And The Recurring Selection And Renewal That Has Caused Life's Progress Would Be Ended.

The Individual Is At The Apex Of His Species' Past, At The Entrance To Its Future.

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.

By Day, Or On A Cloudless Night, A Pilot May Drink The Wine Of The Gods, But It Has An Earthly Taste; He's A God Of The Earth, Like One Of The Grecian Deities Who Lives On Worldly Mountains And Descended For Intercourse With Men. But At Night, Over A Stratus Layer, All Sense Of The Planet May Disappear. You Know That Down Below, Beneath That Heavenly Blanket Is The Earth, Factual And Hard. But It's An Intellectual Knowledge; It's A Knowledge Tucked Away In The Mind; Not A Feeling That Penetrates The Body.

Not Long Ago, When I Was A Student In College, Just Flying An Airplane Seemed A Dream. But That Dream Turned Into Reality.

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.

Mathematical Equations

If One Took No Chances, One Would Not Fly At All. Safety Lies In The Judgment Of The Chances One Takes.

Living In Dreams Of Yesterday, We Find Ourselves Still Dreaming Of Impossible Future Conquests.

Life Without Risks Is Not Worth Living.

It Was That Quality That Led Me Into Aviation In The First Place — It Was A Love Of The Air And Sky And Flying, The Lure Of Adventure, The Appreciation Of Beauty. It Lay Beyond The Descriptive Words Of Man — Where Immortality Is Touched Through Danger, Where Life Meets Death On Equal Plane; Where Man Is More Than Man, And Existence Both Supreme And Valueless At The Same Instant.

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.

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?

Man Is A Mixture Of Desires That Extend Beyond His Knowledge And Often Result In Action Conflicting With Rationality.

We Cannot Allow The Natural Passions And Prejudices Of Other Peoples To Lead Our Country To Destruction.

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.

I Hope You Either Take Up Parachute Jumping Or Stay Out Of Single Motored Airplanes At Night.

I May Be Flying A Complicated Airplane, Rushing Through Space, But In This Cabin I'm Surrounded By Simplicity And Thoughts Set Free Of Time. How Detached The Intimate Things Around Me Seem From The Great World Down Below. How Strange Is This Combination Of Proximity And Separation. That Ground - Seconds Away - Thousands Of Miles Away. This Air, Stirring Mildly Around Me. That Air, Rushing By With The Speed Of A Tornado, An Inch Beyond. These Minute Details In My Cockpit. The Grandeur Of The World Outside. The Nearness Of Death. The Longness Of Life.

At The End Of The First Half-century Of Engine-driven Flight, We Are Confronted With The Stark Fact That The Historical Significance Of Aircraft Has Been Primarily Military And Destructive.

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.

I Learned That Danger Is Relative, And The Inexperience Can Be A Magnifying Glass.

I Don't Believe In Taking Unnecessary Risks, But A Life Without Risk Isn't Worth Living.

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.

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.

The Remedy For Our Social Evils Does Not Consist So Much In Changing The System Of Government As It Does In Increasing The General Intelligence Of The People So That They May Learn How To Govern.

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.

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