“Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.”
Amelia Earhart
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.
“Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.”
— 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“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.”
— Amelia Earhart Primary sourceMore quotes by Amelia Earhart →
“Do not do that which you would not have known.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“A life of leisure, and a life of laziness, are two things.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“One today is worth two tomorrows.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source