GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
Victor Hugo
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There are 3 quotes matching Victor Hugo in the collection:
Be like the bird, who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him,
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.
Victor Hugo
Be Like the Bird, Songs of Dusk, 1836. There are several English translations. In original French:
Soyez comme l’oiseau, posé pour un instant
Sur des rameaux trop frêles,
Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant,
Sachant qu’il a des ailes!
It will bring the immediate, absolute, instantaneous, universal and perpetual abolition of all frontiers, everywhere … The old Gordian knot of gravity will finally be untied … Armies will vanish, and with them the horrors of war, the exploitation of nations, the subjugations of populations. It will bring an immense and totally peaceful revolution. It will bring a sudden golden dawn, a brisk flinging open of the ancient cage door of history, a flooding in of light. It will mean the liberation of all mankind.
Victor Hugo
Letter on flight, 1864. ‘It’ was the balloon.
I believe, Sir, in all progress. Air navigation is consecutive to ocean navigation; from water man must pass to air. Wherever creation is breathable to him, man will penetrate creation. Our only limit is life. Wherever the column of air whose pressure keeps our machine from bursting ceases, man must stop. But he can, must and will go that far, and he will. You prove it. I take the greatest interest in your useful and valiant perpendicular journeys. Your ingenious and bold companion, Mr. W. de Fonvielle, has, like Mr. Victor Meunier, the superior instinct of true Science. I, too, would have a superb taste for scientific adventure. Adventure in fact, hypothesis in idea - these are the two great processes of discovery. Of course, the future lies in aerial navigation, and the duty of the present is to work for the future. You are fulfilling this duty. I, solitary but attentive, follow you with my eyes and shout: Courage!
Victor Hugo
Letter sent in reply to balloonist Gaston Tissandier, Hauteville house, 9 March 1869.
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