Last Flight (Primary source)
Earhart’s posthumous 1937 journal, compiled from dispatches during her final around-the-world attempt, becomes an inadvertent elegy for American optimism. Her matter-of-fact accounts of technical challenges and geographical wonders now read as her last transmission before vanishing into mystery and legend.
“Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary source“The time to worry is three months before a flight. Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. To worry is to add another hazard. It retards reactions, makes one unfit. Hamlet would have been a bad aviator. He worried too much.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary source“It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary source“The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before have I seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, but I was sure of it that night.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary sourceMore quotes by Amelia Earhart →
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Winston Churchill Disputed“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
— Amelia Earhart Disputed“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.”
— Charlie Munger Disputed“Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source