Test Pilots Quotes

It was a unique childhood, to say the least. My father was born in Patiala to refugee parents and was a part of the Indian Air Force. The talented few amongst the Air Force pilots are made test pilots. Test pilots are best suited to look at the space programme as they are trained to expect the unexpected. ~ Kapil Sharma

Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business. ~ Alan Shepard

NO ONE starts a trip thinking that they might crash. Even though there is always a possibility, no one in their right mind ever begins a journey thinking that it's going to end in failure. There are only two types of people in the world who are aware and plan on crashing before they ever start : test pilots and teenage boys. ~ John Goode

People who aren't afraid to live aren't afraid to die. ~ Carol Fiore

And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning. ~ Story Musgrave

It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted independence, were a great colonial animal, an animal made up of countless clustered organisms responding to a central nervous system. In the late 1950's (as in the late 1970's) the animal seemed determined that in all matters of national importance the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting moral tone, should be established and should prevail; and all information that muddied the tone and weakened the feeling should simply be thrown down the memory hole. In a later period this impulse of the animal would take the form of blazing indignation about corruption, abuses of power, and even minor ethical lapses, among public officials; here, in April of 1959, it took the form of a blazing patriotic passion for the seven test pilots who had volunteered to go into space. In either case, the animal's fundamental concern remained the same: the public, the populace, the citizenry, must be provided with the correct feelings! One might regard this animal as the consummate hypocritical Victorian gent. Sentiments that one scarcely gives a second thought to in one's private life are nevertheless insisted upon in all public utterances. (And this grave gent lives on in excellent health.) ~ Tom Wolfe

Later, after flying in the Navy for four or five years, spending some time on an aircraft carrier, I applied to and was accepted in a program where I went to graduate school first and then to the Naval Test Pilots School. ~ Mark Kelly

There's a lot of Hollywood bullshit about flying. I mean, look at the movies about test pilots or fighter pilots who face imminent death. The controls are jammed or something really important has fallen off the plane, and these guys are talking like magpies; their lives are flashing past their eyes, and they're flailing around in the cockpit. It just doesn't happen. You don't have time to talk. You're too damn busy trying to get out of the problem you're in to talk or ricochet around the cockpit. Or think about what happened the night after your senior prom. ~ Robin Olds

For the true student, everything that happens in daily life is a test. ~ Karlfried Graf Durckheim

A wealth of research confirms the importance of face-to-face contact. One experiment performed by two researchers at the University of Michigan challenged groups of six students to play a game in which everyone could earn money by cooperating. One set of groups met for ten minutes face-to-face to discuss strategy before playing. Another set of groups had thirty minutes for electronic interaction. The groups that met in person cooperated well and earned more money. The groups that had only connected electronically fell apart, as members put their personal gains ahead of the group's needs. This finding resonates well with many other experiments, which have shown that face-to-face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction.
The very first experiment in social psychology was conducted by a University of Indiana psychologist who was also an avid bicyclist. He noted that "racing men" believe that "the value of a pace," or competitor, shaves twenty to thirty seconds off the time of a mile. To rigorously test the value of human proximity, he got forty children to compete at spinning fishing reels to pull a cable. In all cases, the kids were supposed to go as fast as they could, but most of them, especially the slower ones, were much quicker when they were paired with another child. Modern statistical evidence finds that young professionals today work longer hours if they live in a metropolitan area with plenty of competitors in th ~ Edward L. Glaeser

Naruto-kun, I understand your feelings so much that it hurts. But the fighting should occur in the matches.
Whether a loser can defeat an elite through the power of hardwork. That's something to look forward to in the main test... Though his opponent might be me. But even if it's you, Naruto-kun, there will be no hard feelings. ~ Masashi Kishimoto

Everybody I know fails the acid test of friendship. ~ Bill Watterson

If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively falling into lockstep behind the leader whenever the flag is waved, then what we have is a formula for dictatorship, not democracy. ~ Michael Pare

If hard things ultimately have a purpose, then they aren't so hard anymore. Therefore, I listed what I had learned: 1. It's easy to forget that people can think you think what you don't think. 2. Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't. 3. A writer's greatest reward is naming something unnamed that many people are feeling. A writer's greatest punishment is being misunderstood. The same words can do both. ~ Gloria Steinem

Experience tells us that few matches are won on the back of one or two good sessions of play. To win a Test match most teams have to win and outplay the opposition for extended periods of time. ~ Justin Langer

I really loved Twin Peaks. When I saw the two-hour pilot, they screened it in the big theatre. I said, I don't know what is going to happen. I'm in this and I don't understand it. This is never going to sell. Who's going to watch this thing? ~ Sherilyn Fenn

Increased congestion was highlighted by the 2009 collision between a Russian government Cosmos satellite and a U.S. commercial Iridium satellite. The collision created approximately 1,500 new pieces of trackable space debris, adding to the more than 3,000 pieces of debris created by the 2007 Chinese ASAT test. ~ Anonymous

I will only hire someone to work directly for me if I would work for that person. It's a pretty good test. ~ Mark Zuckerberg

You have to test your ideas in a public forum. ~ Hillary Clinton

The mystics ask you to take nothing on mere belief. Rather, they give you a set of experiments to test in your own awareness and experience. The laboratory is your own mind, the experiment is meditation. ~ Ken Wilber

Well, what's Cecilia say today?" he asked, not bothering to rise. "Can't believe you two write each other every day. Doesn't it get boring? 'Dear Joseph, I went to town today and bought an egg. Then I boiled it and had breakfast. ~ Jack Lewis Baillot

The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it. ~ Jimmy Carter

I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity. ~ Bill Veeck

The most popular form of atheism is a philosophy called naturalism. Naturalism is the view that science and science alone determines what exists. What exists is what our best scientific theories of the world require. If something is not required by our best scientific theories of the world, then it does not exist. But this is devastating for ethics because moral values are not required by science. Science is morally neutral. You cannot find moral values in a test tube. So it follows immediately, from the perspective of naturalism, that moral values do not really exist. They are just subjective illusions of human beings. ~ William Lane Craig

The real test of our character is when the bottom falls out. ~ LeCrae

Odo in fact owed his first acquaintance with the French writers to Alfieri, who, in the intervals of his wandering over Europe, now and then reappeared in Turin laden with the latest novelties in Transalpine literature and haberdashery. What his eccentric friend failed to provide, Odo had little difficulty in obtaining for himself; for though most of the new writers were on the Index, and the Sardinian censorship was notoriously severe, there was never yet a barrier that could keep out books, and Cantapresto was a skilled purveyor of contraband dainties. Odo had thus acquainted himself with the lighter literature of England and France; and though he had read but few philosophical treatises, was yet dimly aware of the new standpoint from which, north of the Alps, men were beginning to test the accepted forms of thought. The ~ Edith Wharton

On opening the incubator I experienced one of those rare moments of intense emotion which reward the research worker for all his pains: at first glance I saw that the broth culture, which the night before had been very turbid was perfectly clear: all the bacteria had vanished ... as for my agar spread it was devoid of all growth and what caused my emotion was that in a flash I understood: what causes my spots was in fact an invisible microbe, a filterable virus, but a virus parasitic on bacteria. Another thought came to me also, If this is true, the same thing will have probably occurred in the sick man. In his intestine, as in my test-tube, the dysentery bacilli will have dissolved away under the action of their parasite. He should now be cured. ~ Felix D'Herelle

I think it [getting a gun] should be like getting a pilot's license. I think you should require training to get a license to have a gun. ~ Sam Harris

When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a long time before you can really say you're a writer. You've got to stand the test of time, which is the only real test there is. ~ Martin Amis

Two large trials of antioxidants were set up after Peto's paper (which rather gives the lie to nutritionists' claims that vitamins are never studied because they cannot be patented: in fact there have been a great many such trials, although the food supplement industry, estimated by one report to be worth over $50 billion globally, rarely deigns to fund them). One was in Finland, where 30,000 participants at high risk of lung cancer were recruited, and randomised to receive either ß-carotene, vitamin E, or both, or neither. Not only were there more lung cancers among the people receiving the supposedly protective ß-carotene supplements, compared with placebo, but this vitamin group also had more deaths overall, from both lung cancer and heart disease. The results of the other trial were almost worse. It was called the 'Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial', or 'CARET', in honour of the high p-carotene content of carrots. It's interesting to note, while we're here, that carrots were the source of one of the great disinformation coups of World War II, when the Germans couldn't understand how our pilots could see their planes coming from huge distances, even in the dark. To stop them trying to work out if we'd invented anything clever like radar (which we had), the British instead started an elaborate and entirely made-up nutritionist rumour. Carotenes in carrots, they explained, are transported to the eye and converted to retinal, which is the molecule that detects light in the ~ Ben Goldacre

If you follow these simple truths, you will gain control over your financial future, and probably be able to accumulate millions and millions of dollars. These truths are not just about money, but about self discipline and the proof of love between yourself and your family. While I have gleaned these truths from the wisdom of the Jewish people, they will work for anyone in any setting regardless of religious background or income level. This is the oldest financial system in history and the only one that has survived the test of time. ~ Celso Cukierkorn

A demon, in a way, is a test of your faith. Because if you're doing God's work, there's no reason for any demon to do anything to you. ~ Troy Polamalu

Proportion and propriety are among the best secrets of domestic wisdom; and there is no surer test of integrity than a well-proportioned expenditure. ~ Hannah More

Now consider Google, one of the largest, richest, and respected companies in the world. Guess what – they don't hire new college graduates based on SAT or GPA41. Google believes that top students lack "intellectual humility." In other words when they make a mistake, "it's not my fault." For Google, the ability to learn from mistakes (like C students do), is more important than test scores or class rank. Google believes that top students seldom fail in school and, therefore, are deprived of the opportunity to learn from failure. ~ Mark Mullen

Living organisms were not independently created, but have descended and diversified over time from common ancestors. And thus, no other biological theory so elegantly explains this. Evolutionary theory has withstood the test of time - by way of vicarious experimentation, observation, analysis, and relentless criticism, though opposing viewpoints still cling to the concept of "design." As a person of the biological sciences, I cannot subscribe to such misguided notions that suggest static biological states. Clearly, proper examination of the natural world reveal evolutionary trajectories - some random, others nonrandom - and all having observable genetic implications. It is only when we apply evolutionary explanations to living systems that it becomes ever so clear. The world was not specifically designed with us in mind, but rather we long since adapted and conformed to our surroundings, only giving it the illusionary appearance of "design. ~ Tommy Rodriguez

This is unjust. The questionnaire includes circumstances of a criminal's birth and upbringing, including his or her family, neighborhood, and friends. These details should not be relevant to a criminal case or to the sentencing. Indeed, if a prosecutor attempted to tar a defendant by mentioning his brother's criminal record or the high crime rate in his neighborhood, a decent defense attorney would roar, "Objection, Your Honor!" And a serious judge would sustain it. This is the basis of our legal system. We are judged by what we do, not by who we are. And although we don't know the exact weights that are attached to these parts of the test, any weight above zero is unreasonable. ~ Cathy O'Neil

We test students right after they read something mostly to ensure that they have in fact read it. From this, many have drawn the erroneous conclusion that the only good that can be extracted from their reading is that which can be displayed on or measured by a test. This is wildly inaccurate. Most of the good your reading and education has done for you is not something you can recall at all. ~ Douglas Wilson

I can remember back to my early tour days when some fellows didn't think I'd last too long. Nothing physical - they said it was my swing. Some said it was too much of a 'muscle swing' to stand the test of time. One fellow predicted I wouldn't get past 30 out there. ~ Arnold Palmer

Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity. ~ Jane Rule

God always has a plan. This isn't his fault. This is a test, something designed to help you grow closer to God. And. I know, somehow, God will use it. ~ C.B. Cook

One of the reasons teenagers rebel is to test the limits to make sure they are still there. But for you it was particularly difficult. And something you never really got over. ~ Rachel Reiland

Tough times for Martha Stewart. Yesterday, Martha Stewart reported to her parole officer and had to take a mandatory urine test for cocaine and marijuana. Martha was found to be drug-free and her urine was found to be a lovely yellow saffron. ~ Conan O'Brien

If I Were Another


If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!


If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!


If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier -

that's what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another! ~ Mahmoud Darwish

True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. ~ Vernon Law

I went through that phase where I wanted to almost be different than my brother. Just kind of argued a little louder or if there was a curfew, I always came in a little later than I was supposed to. If it was set for 12, I would come in at 12:45. I would test the limits a little. There was no real reason and I grew out of it, eventually. ~ Eli Manning

The enterprise of Adolf Hitler, with all its clatter and fireworks, and all its cunning and dynamic energy, is the enterprise of an evil spirit, which is apparently allowed its freedom for a time in order to test our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. ~ Karl Barth

I think that ninety-five percent of knowing you're the greatest is all about confidence. You might suspect you're the greatest, you might hope you're the greatest, but if you don't have the balls to proclaim yourself the greatest in bold packaging, and let your critics test you if they dare, then you probably aren't the greatest. ~ Mia Sheridan

A brick is a biographical film in which a young orphan brick from the wrong side of the track grows up to be one of the most important bricks in all brick kind, as it is now quite literally the cornerstone of one of America's greatest ballparks.(Fenway) ~ Nicole McKay

To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say "Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?" And they hesitate. And then I say, "What's the matter? Why are you hesitating?" And so often people say, "I don't feel like I'm good enough yet. I don't think I'm ready to say I'm a Christian now." And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves. They have to do it. It sounds very modest to say, "Well, I don't think I' good enough," but it's a very denial of the faith. The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him. As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, "I'm not good enough; Oh, I'm not good enough," you are denying God – you are denying the gospel – you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. You think you're better at times and then again you will find you are not as good at other times than you thought you were. You will be up and down forever. How can I put it plainly? It doesn't matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell. It does not matter if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin. It does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God at all. You are no more hopeless than the most moral and respectable person in the world. ~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

He first make-up crew had three test runs, so by the time we were shooting, they got it down to three hours. They switched make-up crews for Eclipse and they never had any test runs, and they had to figure out what the other team had done, so the first day, I was in the chair for eight hours. But, they adjusted the scar from New Moon to Eclipse. The first time, there was more pullage on my face, so I had a hard time eating. It didn't hurt, but it was uncomfortable. ~ Tinsel Korey

Wilson-Donovan wanted to move ahead as quickly as possible to clinical trials on patients, which was why it was so important to test Vicotec's safety now before the FDA hearings in September, which would hopefully put it on the "Fast Track." Peter was absolutely sure that the testing being concluded by Paul-Louis Suchard, the head of the laboratory in Paris, would only confirm the good news he had just been given in Geneva. ~ Danielle Steel

Civic flattery - or a political culture that allows people to appear to engage in civic discourse without ever having their opinions, or even their claims of fact, seriously challenged - is ultimately more damaging to democracy than civic enmity. When we incorporate civic flattery into our personal relationships, we get shallow, insincere friendships. When we use it as the basis for political alliances, we get echo chambers. And when a skilled political manipulator flatters a large portion of the population in an attempt to acquire and consolidate power, we get perhaps the most dangerous test that a democratic society can ever face: the emergence of a demagogue. ~ Michael Austin

The first step on the path to fearlessness is to embrace two critical principles of truth that are the opposites of the two core fears (the fear of failure and the fear of loss). If you practice trusting these two truths you can eliminate fear in any situation. The first is to trust that your value isn't on the line because life is a classroom, not a test. The second is to trust that your journey is the perfect classroom journey for you; that anything you lose, you are meant to lose; and that each experience serves you no matter what happens. ~ Kimberly Giles