Top Three Quotes About Wilbur Wright

Faith, Constraints, and the Where of Success

Author

Ben Wilson
November 01, 2023

Hey 👋🏼

Welcome back to Take Over Tuesday,

The Wright Brothers Part 2 is finally out, so if you celebrate Halloween, I hope you dressed up like Wilbur wright and walked the neighborhood while playing the podcast intro on the loudspeaker.

Wright Brothers endnotes is coming later this week. If you want to listen, sign up here. Until then, enjoy these three quotes about/from Wilbur Wright.

The Wright Brothers at Le Mans, France | 1908

Three quotes about Wilbur Wright

“It wasn't luck that made them fly. It was hard work and common sense. They put their whole heart and soul and all their energy into an idea, and they had the faith.”

John T Daniels

“He and his brother made the conquest of the sky their existence. They needed this ambition and profound, almost religious faith. In order to deliberately accept their exile to the country of the dunes, far away from it all. Wilbur is driven by a will of iron, which animates him and drives him in his work.”

Franz Reichel on The Wright Brothers

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

Wilbur Wright, 1908, in France

Some thoughts and notes

  • The Wright Brothers were initially ignored or mocked by the press and government in the US. They eventually found an adoptive home in France, where they were celebrated as geniuses. Sometimes you need to leave where you are to find the place where you will thrive.

  • Samuel Langley, a competitor who was trying to beat the Wright Brothers to be the first in flight, spent more than $70k dollars on his prototype, which failed miserably. By contrast, the Wright brothers spent less than $1k on their flight experiments before they attained their first successful flight. Sometimes constraints help you achieve more.

  • The top two quotes both highlight a quality of Wilbur’s that many people remarked on: Faith. He had a belief in himself, and in the possibility of human flight. Immense self-belief often precedes great actions.

That’s it for this edition. Thanks for reading!