Air Power Quotes

A modern, autonomous, and thoroughly trained Air Force in being at all times will not alone be sufficient, but without it there can be no national security. ~ Henry H. Arnold

Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere. ~ Charles Lindbergh

Never abandon the possibility of attack. Attack even from a position of inferiority, to disrupt the enemy's plans. This often results in improving one's own position. ~ Adolf Galland

Why don't we just buy one airplane and let the pilots take turns flying it. ~ Calvin Coolidge

We were once told that the aeroplane had "abolished frontiers"; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable. ~ George Orwell

I think I can say without fear of contradiction that we could generate sorties at an extremely high level and bring very, very effective air power to bear in support of our troops. ~ Bill Vaughan

The one effective method of defending one's own territory from an offensive by air is to destroy the enemy's air power with the greatest possible speed. ~ Giulio Douhet

Are you aware it is private property? Why you'll be asking be to bomb Essen next. ~ Kingsley Wood

If we lose the war in the air we lose the war and we lose it quickly. ~ Bernard Law Montgomery

There isn't any air power in the world that can take care of the problem of sectarian divisions. ~ Bob Menendez

With us air people, the future of our nation is indissolubly bound up in the development of air power. ~ Billy Mitchell

Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy's economic and moral centres without having first to achieve 'the destruction of the enemy's main forces on the battlefield'. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means - hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air. ~ Giulio Douhet

The conviction of the justification of using even the most brutal weapons is always dependent on the presence of a fanatical belief in the necessity of the victory of a revolutionary new order on this globe. ~ Adolf Hitler

Air power speaks a strategic language so new that translation into the hackneyed idiom of the past is impossible. ~ Alexander P. De Seversky

If we had these rockets in 1939, we should never have had this war. ~ Adolf Hitler

War is a nasty, dirty, rotten business. It's all right for the Navy to blockade a city, to starve the inhabitants to death. But there is something wrong, not nice, about bombing that city. ~ Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

From now on we shall bomb Germany on an ever-increasing scale, month by month, year by year, until the Nazi regime has either been exterminated by us or - better still - torn to pieces by the German people themselves. ~ Winston Churchill

A stone thrown up into the air is bound to fall down, and absolute power is like a huge stone thrown up into the air. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Air power may either end war or end civilization. ~ Winston Churchill

Relying exclusively on air power has limits: planes are effective against fixed strategic targets, like petroleum storage, bridges, and command bunkers; but even then, air power rarely succeeds by itself in destroying a regime's ability to command and control its forces. ~ Michael Ignatieff

We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go in with the war. That is our object, and we shall pursue it relentlessly. ~ Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

Air power is indivisible. If you split it up into compartments, you merely pull it to pieces and destroy its greatest asset, its flexibility. ~ Bernard Law Montgomery

It is not possible ... to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city. ~ John Thomason

If our airforces are never used, they have achieved their finest goal. ~ Nathan Farragut Twining

I wish for many reasons flying had never been invented. ~ Stanley Baldwin

The sky over London was glorious, ochre and madder, as though a dozen tropic suns were simultaneously setting round the horizon ... Everywhere the shells sparkled like Christmas baubles. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Such an experiment without actual conditions of war to support it is a foolish waste of time ... I once saw a man kill a lion with a 30-30 caliber rifle under certain conditions, but that doesn't mean that a 30-30 rifle is a lion gun. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I'm willing to stand on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit tries to hit if from the air. ~ Newton D. Baker

Air power alone does not guarantee America's security, but I believe it best exploits the nation's greatest asset - our technical skill. ~ Hoyt Vandenberg

The decision to rely heavily on high-altitude air power, target urban infrastructure and repeatedly attack heavily populated towns and villages has reflected a deliberate trade-off of the lives of American pilots and soldiers, not with those of their declared Taliban enemies, but with Afghan civilians ... There will be no official two-minute silence for the Afghan dead, no newspaper obituaries or memorial services attended by the prime minister, as there were for the victims of the twin towers. ~ Seumas Milne

Allied air power was the greatest single reason for the German defeat. ~ Albert Kesselring

"He who wants to protect everything, protects nothing," is one of the fundamental rules of defense. ~ Adolf Galland

If we maintain our faith in God, love of freedom, and superior global air power, the future looks good. ~ Curtis LeMay

Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence. ~ Winston S. Churchill

Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless. ~ Ferdinand Foch

There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My reply to that is that it has never been tried ... and we shall see. ~ Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

Air warfare is a shot through the brain, not a hacking to pieces of the enemy's body. ~ J. F. C. Fuller

Air control can be established by superiority in numbers, by better employment, by better equipment, or by a combination of these factors. ~ Carl Andrew Spaatz

Whatever the lengths to which others may go, His Majesty's Government will never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children and other civilians for purposes of mere terrorism. ~ Neville Chamberlain

During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won. ~ Adolf Galland

The bomber will always get through. The only defense is in offense, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly that the enemy if you want to save yourselves. ~ Stanley Baldwin

I would attack any squadron blockading a port. Nothing could prevent me from dropping out of the clear blue sky on to a battleship with 400 kilos of explosives in the cockpit. Of course it is true that the pilot would be killed, but everything would blow up, and that's what counts. ~ Jules Vedrines

Air power is the most difficult of military force to measure or even express in precise terms. ~ Winston Churchill

Airpower has become predominant, both as a deterrent to war, and-in the eventuality of war-as the devastating force to destroy an enemy's potential and fatally undermine his will to wage war. ~ Omar N. Bradley

Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack. ~ Winston Churchill

Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations. ~ Jeane Kirkpatrick

Our supremacy on Caladan," the Duke said, "depended on sea and air power. Here, we must develop something I choose to call desert power. This ~ Frank Herbert

We need to use overwhelming air power. We need to be arming the Kurds. We need to be fighting and killing ISIS where they are. ~ Ted Cruz

The best way to defend the bombers is to catch the enemy before it his in position to attack. Catch them when they are taking off, or when they are climbing, or when they are forming up. Don't think you can defend the bomber by circling around him. It's good for the bombers morale, and bad for tactics. ~ Robin Olds

Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind. ~ H.G.Wells

I will ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope. ~ Frontinus

Above all, I shall see to it that the enemy will not be able to drop any bombs. ~ Hermann Goring

The best defence of the country is the fear of the fighter. If we are strong in fighters we should probably never be attacked in force. If we are moderately strong we shall probably be attacked and the attacks will gradually be bought to a standstill ... If we are weak in fighter strength, the attacks will not be bought to a standstill and the productive capacity of the country will be virtually destroyed. ~ Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding

My Luftwaffe is invincible ... And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks? ~ Hermann Goring

Good God! This man should be writing dime novels. ~ Josephus Daniels

On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. ~ Frank Herbert

Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

ISIS is a formidable foe, but the counter forces to it have only just begun and if these forces, the Iraqi army, the Kurdish Peshmerga, American air power, the Syrian Free Army, work in a coordinated fashion, it will start losing ground. Also, please keep in mind that ISIS does not actually hold as much ground as the many maps flashed on television keep showing. Large parts of those territories that ISIS supposedly controls are vacant desert. ~ Fareed Zakaria

Love is my strength, love is my power. ~ Debasish Mridha

The air was not as hazy here as it was over the rest of the city, and the sky overhead had achieved a color that was almost blue. ~ Cassandra Clare

The true miracle is not walking on water or walking in air, but simply walking on this earth. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

By his own assessment, he was no genius. He had "no great quickness of apprehension or wit" or "power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought." On the many occasions when I share those feelings, I find it encouraging to review those words because that Englishman did okay for himself - his name was Charles Darwin. ~ Leonard Mlodinow

One can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna. A globalization of evangelism 'in connection' with others, and a globally 'in-formed' gospel, is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim - people from other so called 'new' religious traditions ('new' only to us) - without assumption of superiority and power ~ Leonard Sweet

Not a single one of the doctrines of Marx has ever been accepted by any economist or any philosopher. But what of it? It was necessary that Gaiseric should convince economists or philosophers that there were sound reasons why he should capture Rome. He and his followers wanted it, and they had the power to take it. ~ Thomas Nixon Carver

I will only observe, that that ethereal sense - sight, and touch, which is at the other extremity of the scale, have from time acquired a very remarkable additional power. ~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

That which is denied gains power, and seeks strange and unexpected forms of manifestation. ~ Peter J. Carroll

I do not believe in the court system, at least I do not think it is especially good at finding the truth. No lawyer does. We have all seen too many mistakes, too many bad results. A jury verdict is just a guess - a well-intentioned guess, generally, but you simply cannot tell fact from fiction by taking a vote. And yet, despite all that, I do believe in the power of the ritual. I believe in the religious symbolism, the black robes, the marble-columned courthouses like Greek temples. When we hold a trial, we are saying a mass. We are praying together to do what is right and to be protected from danger, and that is worth doing whether or not our prayers are actually heard. ~ William Landay

In the modern world it is not bricks and roads, cannon and swords that define power. No; it is paper. Books of law, deeds of ownership, writs of forbiddance and permission. Titles of lordship, directives of the king's sub-Ministry for Associated Trade. Memoranda from that last desk alone could sink and shake kingdoms, decide the fates of thousands across the sea. Ink runs thicker than blood. Paper: more powerful than an army or the pox. ~ Raymond St. Elmo

Damnú air."
"You're cussing!"
"I refuse to admit to uttering bad words in any language." Patrick grinned and his teeth flashed white. "Jenny has been Googling German insults. I don't want her to look up Gaelic next."
Oh Lord. I tried not to think about what kind of information Jenny discovered in her search. "You let her Google curse words?"
"She said it was for educational purposes."
"Yeah, right. You are so fired as the baby-sitter. ~ Michele Bardsley

Before we leave the gravesite, Mary sings Mother's favorite gospel hymn ...
Mary's lovely voice rises and lingers in the air, and by the end of the song most of us are crying. I am too, though I still don't know what those stars are meant to represent. My mistake, I suppose, is in thinking they should mean something. ~ Christina Baker Kline

In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air its purest. ~ Horatius Bonar

I would rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at the cost of seeing America become a second-race power and to see this Nation accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history. ~ Richard M. Nixon

With awesome power unfortunately comes an escalated potential for corruption. ~ Karsten Knight

People say that I'm a tree hugger, but I do a lot more than hug trees. I like having my drinking water without faecal matter, that's really nice. Or acceptable levels of strychnine. I'm an air breather, I've gotten used to that over the years. ~ Robin Williams

We want to change the identity of Delhi from Generator Capital to Power Generation Capital. ~ Narendra Modi

You must take into account the actual distinction between truth and fact. It is beyond all human power to tell all the facts. Your whole lifetime spent at nothing else would not tell all the facts of one morning in your life, just any ordinary morning when you get up, dress, get breakfast and wash the dishes. Facts are infinite in number. The truth is a meaning underlying them; you tell the truth by selecting the facts to illustrate it. ~ Rose Wilder Lane

When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible. ~ Salman Rushdie

A tendency to resume the same mode of action at stated times is peculiarly the characteristic of the nervous system; and on this account regularity is of great consequence in exercising the moral and intellectual power. All nervous diseases have a marked tendency to observe regular periods; and the natural inclination to sleep at the approach of night is another instance of the same fact. ~ George Combe

In the firm belief that the American public deserves a better explanation than that thus far given by the Air Force, I strongly recommend that there be a committee investigation of the UFO phenomena. I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs, and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment of the subject. ~ Gerald R. Ford

Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from the outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and we continuously need more and more of them. Eventually, they have little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And we we cease to grow, we begin to die. ~ Mortimer J. Adler

The First Amendment protects our freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to practice religion, to peacefully assemble, and the right to petition the government. This is true tolerance as defined by our founding documents. This is the right of all American citizens. Does the right of free speech end on college campuses of higher learning? Does it end when you step into a designated "safe space" at your local university? Does it end if your choice of words is construed to be a "trigger warning" when you walk into a classroom?

The answer obviously should be no. Unfortunately, the answer today on most college campuses is yes. And take this warning seriously: it won't end there.

The commentator Andrew Sullivan has noted the student anti-free-speech movement "manifests itself . . . almost as a religion". He continues:

"It posits a classic orthodoxy through which all of human experience is explained--and through which all speech must be filtered. Its version of original sin is the power of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, you need first to confess, i.e., "check your privilege", and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in a way that keeps this sin at bay. This sin goes so deep into your psyche, especially if you are white or male or straight, that a profound conversion is required.

It operates as a religion in one other critical dimension: If you happen to see the world in a different way, if ~ Everett Piper

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. "Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?"

Despite Caleb's attempts at caution - at circumspection and even suspicion - the man's words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.

"I am. ~ G.S. Jennsen

This is the paradox of public space: even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything. One of the first measures taken by the new Bolshevik government in 1918 was to make public the entire corpus of tsarist secret diplomacy, all the secret agreements, the secret clauses of public agreements etc. There too the target was the entire functioning of the state apparatuses of power. ~ Slavoj Zizek

History is formed by the people, those who have power and those without power. Each one of us makes history. ~ Anselm Kiefer

I quickly lost track of time. I forgot that my avatar was sitting in Halliday's bedroom and that, in reality, I was sitting in my hideout, huddled near the electric heater, tapping at the empty air in front of me, entering commands on an imaginary keyboard. All of the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself in the game within the game. In ~ Ernest Cline

The only thing that can break the cycle of abundant living is sin. Sin breaks the flow of God's power. ~ Bruce H. Wilkinson

So it goes for those of us who live in a cul-de-sac, where babies are brought home from the hospital and watched over, where hearts stop and feet slip, where we wonder if there is a hidden road that leads somewhere.
We believe and we doubt. Believing and doubting share the same inevitability, but they are not equal. They cannot lay the same claim on our allegiance. They do not share the same power.
If there are places beyond the cul-de-sac, doubt cannot take us there. ~ John Ortberg

The power of music feels like taking a a nice brake from this busy world ~ Millie DeWitt

He had gone again and, emboldened by his first successful trip, had chosen a different sort of world to enter, that of THE MONK. He had studied the book with great care and finally selected a passage that was purely descriptive.

The result was the same. The instant he closed the top of the showcase, he was transported to the world described in the open pages. He found himself standing - and shivering - in a dank corridor that, he knew, was far underground. Feeble candlelight flickered in the distance, off to his left. Water dripped down the gleaming walls and startled rats scurried past his feet. The air was stale and unpleasant. Down the corridor to his left, he could hear singing but could not make out the words. Then suddenly, from his right, he heard a woman's high-pitched scream, its sound caroming off the wet, stone walls of the passageway. He jumped, his skin crawling at the back of his neck.

And found himself back in his warm and familiar room.

("I Shall Not Leave England Now") ~ Alan Ryan

Many Christians struggle hard with this idea of repentance because they somehow expect that if they genuinely repent, sin will go away and temptation will stop. When that doesn't happen, they fall into despair, questioning whether their faith in Jesus is real. It's true that when God regenerates us, he gives us power to fight against and overcome sin (1 Cor. 10:13). But because we will continue to struggle with sin until we are glorified, we have to remember that genuine repentance is more a matter of the heart's attitude toward sin that it is a mere change of behavior. Do we hate sin and war against it, or do we cherish it and defend it? (p. 81). ~ Greg Gilbert

In the face of cold power, she is fire. ~ Pierce Brown

Because parents have power over children. They feel they have to do what their parents say. But the love of money is the root of all evil. And this is a sweet child. And to see him turn like this, this isn't him. This is not him. ~ Michael Jackson

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you're fighting the system, then you're still caught in it. It's not about fighting the system; it's about ceasing to hold it together. Non-cooperation. We cannot be imprisoned without our cooperation. Their power is in our acquiescence. ~ David Icke

The streets were awash with blues and grays – suspended in the air, bouncing off buildings, reflecting off car windows – as Brooklyn neared nighttime. ~ Abby Slovin

All this is not to suggest that the growth in useful knowledge is leading us to a world of bliss. Athena's gifts were many: she gave King Cecrops the olive tree, but she also gave the city of Troy the wooden horse that led to its destruction. Technology makes people more powerful in exploiting nature, but how and for what purpose they do so remains indeterminate. If the twentieth century has shown us anything, it is that the capacity of humans for intolerance, stupidity, and selfishness has not declined as their technological power has increased. ~ Joel Mokyr