These Amelia Earhart quotes and quotations are sure to stir your blood!
(If you're in a hurry, skip the Amelia Earhart biography, and scroll down to Amelia Earhart Quotes.)
Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) the world's most famous female aviator
You might think that because Amelia Earhart was pretty, she had an easy life... Not so.
Born in Kansas, U.S.A., her childhood was first unsettled and then troubled. Amelia’s father was an alcoholic who lived beyond his means. Each new job required the family’s relocation, and attendance at a new school for Amelia. Her parents split up for a while and eventually divorced.
Amelia had to deal with pneumonia and chronic sinusitis. She worked at many different occupations, including truck driver, and volunteer nurse in a hospital for war veterans. (Her nursing experience turned her into an ardent pacifist.)
She walked four miles to get a bus to take her to her first flying lessons. (Which of course meant she walked another four miles afterwards, to get the bus back home.)
And she wasn’t even a naturally gifted pilot!
But she persevered…
As the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, Amelia received the Distinguished Flying Cross from the U.S. Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honour from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from U.S. President Herbert Hoover.
Amelia still had a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in mostly male-dominated fields that she put together in her tomboy childhood. Now she said her flight proved the equality of men and women in jobs requiring "intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower."
Then, in 1937, at 39 years old, she was lost without a trace during the Pacific Ocean leg of her round-the-world flight.
Hundreds of articles and scores of books have been written about Amelia Earhart's life. And then there's the 2009 film, Amelia, about her achievements.
Amelia Earhart quotes have inspired many young women to go further than they thought possible. Her independence, persistence, courage, coolness under pressure and goal-oriented success have made her an enduring feminist icon.
And as you can see from this photo below, Amelia LOVED flying!
AMELIA EARHART QUOTES
Short Amelia Earhart quotes
- Adventure is worthwhile in itself.
- The lure of flying is the lure of beauty.
- I can only say that I do it because I want to.
- The most effective way to do it, is to do it.
- It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.
- Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.
- Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.
- Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.
- Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.
- There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.
- There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.
- Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.
- Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn't be done.
- The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.
- Decide... whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.
- Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do.
- One of my favourite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren't routine, often don't get a fair break.
- Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
- The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold restless day and count it fair.
- They (women) do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, also, women get more notoriety when they crash.
Longer Amelia Earhart quotes
- I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage. (About marriage)
- I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.
Long Amelia Earhart quotes
- The effect of having other interests beyond those domestic works well. The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.
- In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful "break" was apt to lurk just around the corner.
- No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
- The economic structure we have built up is all too often a barrier between the world's work and the workers. If the younger generation finds the hurdle too absurdly high, I hope it will not hesitate to tear it down and substitute a social order in which the desire to work and learn carries with it the opportunity to do so.
- Like many horrid children I loved school, though I never qualified as teacher's pet. Perhaps the fact that I was exceedingly fond of reading made me endurable. With a large library to browse in, I spent many hours not bothering anyone after I once learned to read.
- It is true that there are no more geographical frontiers to push back, no new lands flowing with milk and honey this side of the moon to promise surcease from man-made ills. But there are economic, political, scientific, and artistic frontiers of the most exciting sort awaiting faith and the spirit of adventure to discover them.
- Women should do for themselves what men have already done—occasionally what men have not done—thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do.
- Times are changing and women need the critical stimulus of competition outside the home. A girl must nowadays believe completely in herself as an individual.
She must realize at the outset that a woman must do the same job better than a man to get as much credit for it. She must be aware of the various discriminations, both legal and traditional, against women in the business world.
- Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn't any good reason to refer to it. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
. And then there's the 2009 film, 
, about her achievements.
