Eddie Rickenbacker
Eddie Rickenbacker
Edward Vernon Rickenbackerwas an American fighter ace in World War I and Medal of Honor recipient. With 26 aerial victories, he was America's most successful fighter ace in the war. He was also a race car driver and automotive designer, a government consultant in military matters and a pioneer in air transportation, particularly as the longtime head of Eastern Air Lines...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWar Hero
Date of Birth8 October 1890
CityColumbus, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Courage is doing what your afraid to do. There can be no courage unless your scared.
The sensation of dying is sweet, sensuous, placid.
Sports of every sort had always appealed to me.
Some friends are better shots than are casual enemies.
Never count on the crowd to take care of you.
When I was racing, I had learned that you can't set stock in public adoration or your press clippings. By the time I was 26, I'd heard crowds of 100,000 scream my name, but a week later they couldn't remember who I was. You're a hero today and a bum tomorrow - hero to zero, I sometimes say.
It is the easiest thing in the world to die. The hardest is to live.
Long practise in driving a racing car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed and helps tremendously in getting motor sense, which is rather the feel of your engine than the sound of it, a thing you get through your bones and nerves rather than simply your ears.
Fighting in the air is not a sport. It is scientific murder.
I'll fight like a wildcat until they nail the lid of my pine box down on me.
The obviously inexperienced pilot is the game the scientific air-fighter goes after, and the majority of victories are won that way. But, on the other hand, it is the novice usually who gets the famous ace by doing at some moment the unexpected thing.
The excitement of automobile racing did not compare with what I knew must come with aeroplane fighting in France.
I shall never ask any pilot to go on a mission that I won't go on.
I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know.