GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
BYRON

O! ‘darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,’
As some one somewhere sings about the sky.

Lord Byron

Don Juan, IV. 110, published between 1819 and 1824.

Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires,
Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.

Alphonse de Lamartine

Addressed to Lord Byron in 1819. L’Homme, in Méditations poétiques, Paris: Au dépôt de la librairie grecque-latine-allemande, 1820. The original French:

“Borné dans sa nature, infini dans ses vœux, L’homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux.”

I suppose we shall soon travel by air-vessels; make air instead of sea voyages; and at length find our way to the Moon, in spite of the want of atmosphere.

Lord Byron

1822. Quoted in Conversations of Lord Byron: Volume I, by Thomas Medwin, 1825.

Oh, Hedy Lamarr is a beautiful gal, and Madeleine Carroll is too,
But you’ll find if you query, a different theory amongst any bomber crew
For the loveliest thing of which one could sing (this side of the pearly gates)
Is no blonde or brunette of the Hollywood set -
But an escort of P-38s.

Yes, in the days that have passed,
when the tables were massed with glasses of scotch and champagne,
It's quite true that the sight was a thing of delight us,
intent on feeling no pain.
But no longer the same, nowadays is this game
When we head north for Messina Straits
Take the sparkling wine-every time,
just make mine an escort of P-38s.

Byron, Shelley and Keats ran a dozen dead heats
Describing the views from the hills,
of the valleys in May when the winds gently sway
In the air it’s a different story;
We sweat out our track through the fighters and flak
we’re willing to split up the glory
Well, they wouldn’t reject us, so heaven protect us
and, until all this shooting abates,
Give us courage to fight 'em — one other small item -
an escort of P-38s.

Frederic Arnold, USAAF

P-38 pilot in WWII. Kohn's War, 1985.